Poetry Sessions: Red – Ted Hughes

Within the poem Red, the poet Ted Hughes writes about his wife, Sylvia Plath, and how the colour red connotes her vitality and her life, together with the connotation of anger and pain, opposed to the colour white which connotes his wife’s death and demise.

Throughout the poem, the imagery of red used often, creating an overwhelming sensation for the audience. The narrator also notices the mass amount of red in the couple’s lives. The quotation “red was what you wrapped around you” suggests that the narrators wife is always surrounded by this colour, indicating that she feels comfortable, hence wrapping herself in the colour red. It also suggests that his wife always had the colour of blood around her, which could represent her internal suffering, yet she needs red around her to feel safe and in control. This makes the reader feel concerned towards the wife’s well-being and why her favourite colour is blood-red, which commonly symbolises death. This further shows that the wife could have mental issues if she sees the colour red as a positive connotation opposed to the negative connotations that red would ordinarily symbolise, such as anger or death.

In the seventh stanza, the husband states that his wife would hide all the white with red roses – “painted white then splashed it with roses, defeated it,” This quotation suggests that his wife often slipped into her demise (which is represented by the colour white) and she struggled to keep healthy mentally. However, when she started to realise that something was wrong, she would camouflage the white away by “splashing” the colour red everywhere in the form of roses. This suggests that the wife wants to instantly hide away the foreshadowing of her demise; hence drowning her life back into redness again to feel secure, as she knows nothing except redness in her life. The verb “splashed” indicates that the red overpowers the white, hence the quick motion of splashing all the white at once. This further proposes the splashing of blood could be occurring, which represents the wife’s mental struggles. This makes the audience feel discomforted as a vast amount of red is being used to cover up the white, further suggesting that the wife is drowning herself in her mental illness, hence dying quickly, yet she’s attempting to cover it up and impersonate normality.

The structure and form of the poem is in a story-telling form as the couple move into a house together and are decorating. It also reveals that the husband discovers that the wife has an obsession with the colour red, which acknowledges her illness, and slowly merges into insanity and foreshadowing her death. Within the last three stanzas, Hughes addresses the preference of the colour blue on Plath, which could be a reference to the poem The Blue Flannel Suit. It could also suggest that the husband paired the colour blue to his wife as he wanted her to be free from her struggles, hence using a more calming colour opposed to  the harsh red that has suffocated their lives. The poem builds to a climax, nonetheless ends with a resolution, as the husband comes to the conclusion that the wife’s more profound colour was blue. This indicates that the husband distinguished that his wife was mentally ill later after her death, and as he is replaying the events, Hughes concludes the poem with a bittersweet denouement.

Poetry Sessions: The Blue Flannel Suit – Ted Hughes

Within the poem The Blue Flannel Suit, the poet Ted Hughes creates a personal meaning for the audience to read. Via the use of language techniques, Hughes writes about his wife and how her death affected him.

Within the second stanza of the poem, the narrative voice of the husband is observing his wife teaching for the first time, commenting on her suit. Hughes writes “the misery of your blue flannel suit, its straightjacket”. This quotation suggests that the husband was observing his wife forcing herself to teach and fit into society’s expectation, hence the reference to the suit being a straightjacket. The phrase “its straightjacket” could be a metaphor for how the wife feels restricted and trapped within herself, which the husband has observed yet doesn’t do anything about it, further suggesting that there could be problems within the marriage. This makes the audience wonder why the husband doesn’t help his wife and why the wife is struggling with personal mental issues. It also implies a foreboding sensation that something tragic is to happen within the marriage, as straightjackets are associated with mental institutions.

The form and structure of the poem indicates that the husband had little emotion towards his wife’s death, possibly due to the shock and feeling numb whilst grieving her. Throughout the first and second stanza, the husband also doesn’t show many emotions, rather just observations about his wife and her attitude. This suggests that the husband is saying it in a monotone voice, using blunt expressions to represent what happened leading up to her death. As the poem progresses into the final stanza where the wife has passed away, emotions from the husband are lacking even more so. This suggests to the audience that the husband could be re-telling the final days, therefore bluntly and emotionless as he is grieving and dealing with it his own way, making the audience pity him and feel sympathy towards him.

The Island of Tenerife

What does summer mean to you? Nice weather, relaxing after exams, ice creams, beach days. In England, you’re extremely lucky to get nice sunny days that are above the 22 Celsius radar. Therefore, my family and I spent eleven nights in the sunny island of Tenerife. Whilst there, we went on a few trips such as on a dolphin boat, a monkey part and the largest zoo attraction there called Loro Parque, however the majority of the holiday was spent either at the beach or the pool.

My favourite part of the holiday was the visit to Loro Parque, which is Spanish for Parrot Park. The exotic parrots was not what intrigued me, alternately it was the spectacular ocean shows. They had a killer whale show, dolphin show and sea lion show, as well as a shark aquarium. During the killer whale show, the instructors performed the tricks with the whales, as well as explaining why the orcas were in captivity. The show was amazing, however we were put into splash zone seats – I thought we wouldn’t get that wet as we were quite high up in the stalls. So there we were, watching the show with cameras at a ready to capture the tricks, when one whale swam over and drenched our whole side. We were soaked. Luckily, it was a nice day so the heat dried us off. The dolphin show was the best out of all of them, as I’ve had a fascination with dolphins since I was very young. We watched in awe and amazement as the dolphins did marvellous stunts, my favourite when they performed limbo as well as one dolphin flipping the instructor in a gambol 50 feet in the air!

 

It came to a total shock to the whole hotel, when on a cloudy Monday night, a thunderstorm rolled in. To get to our room, we had to venture across the pool, and climb 5 sets of stairs to get to the top apartment. Any other day that would have been fine – minus the stairs which were such a workout – but on this night, it was even harder. The rain was violently bouncing off the ground as lightning kept flashing, threatening to strike. The thunder was roaring louder than a lion. We grabbed the nearest umbrella from the poolside and made a run for it, using the umbrella like a shield protecting us from bullets. All was good when we finally made it to the room, despite being sopping wet again. My brother found it that entertaining that he proceeded to chant the Thunder Song from the movie Ted.

Overall, Tenerife was one of my favourite holidays so far. It was nice to sit and relax everyday by the sunny beach with the golden sand and cooling waves of the ocean. Sadly, two days back in England and my tan is already starting to fade and peel away. Plus it’s raining. Oh, it’s great to be back in sunny old England.

My Once-In-A-Lifetime Experience

On Monday 6^th July 2015, the journey of a lifetime started. It didn’t feel that way that morning however, as I was venturing off to North Wales to complete a week of activities with 60 strangers. This was utterly terrifying – no service, no Wi-Fi, what was I going to do? However, as we all got put into teams of 12, and completed activities such as gorge walking and canoeing, those 60 strangers quickly became friends. That experience had to have been the best thing about NCS – how easily it was to bond with people and make new friends for life.

The first week was tough – no Wi-Fi or service, meaning that we all had to talk to each other and bond as a team. We carried out activities such as canoeing, hiking and bouldering in the rain (which was not fun at all) and gorge walking, camping and the dreaded wave time we had to complete every night. Personally, gorge walking was my favourite as by this point the whole group were friends – singing We’re Going On A Bear Hunt together proved that – and we truly had some great times jumping in waterfalls and slipping down the rocks.

The second week, however, couldn’t have been more different. The whole wave (the 60 young people) was split again into different flats in the university accommodations. The biggest challenge that week was learning to cook and clean, not only for ourselves, but for the judges every night. The challenge really brought out everyone’s competitive sides as each flat battled to win the Cooking Challenge 2015. It came as a great shock that my flat won this challenge – it must have been those rice crispy cakes! Other challenges that week was to learn a new skill and visit community partners (my team visited Keyring, a charity that helps adults with learning disabilities), then finally present all this at the big showcase on the Friday evening.

 

The final week was tough, purely as the staff had deprived us all from sleep over the past two weeks, and we still had a 9 till 5 schedule every day! It was safe to say that we were all shattered; however we still put all our effort into planning the best campaign and pitch. The pitch was unnerving – the whole wave was watching each individual team deliver their pitch to the Dragons, hoping to gain the full £50 budget. There was spotlights and music all set up in the same form as Dragon’s Den – who wouldn’t be nervous?!

By 6pm on the 23^rd July the journey was over, for now, as our leader Maggie kept saying. We still have the four weekends in September and graduation, but all I can think about now is how much I want my bed and a good lie-in after one of the best experiences of my life.

Scary trip to Alton Towers…

We were going to die. That was the first thought that popped into my head on the car journey to Alton Towers Theme Park. After the horrific The Smiler crash, I was slightly weary to go on any rides – it also probably didn’t help that I was on google for an hour the night before looking at all the other ride failures that had occurred literally two days before. So I think it was fair to say that I was crapping my pants.

I had been once before to the theme park back in year 9 with school, however it chucked it down and we got drenched, so the experience wasn’t all I had hoped for it to be. All year long I had been annoying my parents to go back to the park, and now that the time had come again I was dreading it. However, by the time we reached the park and had sat on the sweltering monorail, looking out across the breath-taking garden scenery and seeing all of the rides glistening in the summer sun, the dread was quickly replaced by pure excitement and adrenaline.

My favourite ride from the whole day had to have been Air – it felt as if I was flying over a forest. It was such a weird, yet amazing experience. It sent us swooping low and high over rocks and terrain, and then spun us lying flat upside down, letting us gaze at the beautiful sunny sky. It truly felt like I was flying – I would recommend the ride to anyone who has ever wished they could fly like a bird.

The whole day was brilliant and none of the rides broke down! The day after we went, however, lots of the rides had issues, so I was glad we went when we did. Later on in the evening the four of us went to Pizza Hut and oh my gosh, the food was delicious. I ate so much that I didn’t eat anything the day after as I was too full! It was a fantastic start to my extended break before returning to school in September (I’m trying not to think about it too much).