Sylvia Plath's Son-Nicholas Hughes, Has Committed Suicide

Jessica Schneider
Nicholas Hughes, the son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, has committed suicide, according to the AFP.

He killed himself at the age of 47, on Monday March 16th, in his Alaska home. The article notes that he had been suffering depression for some time.

For those who might not know, this is an odd twist in the Plath and Hughes tragedy. Sylvia Plath, the American poet, gassed herself in 1963 at the age of 30 in her London home, leaving behind two young children, Frieda and Nicholas Hughes.

She was also the wife of Ted Hughes, who left her for another woman named Assia Wevill, who also committed suicide by gassing not only herself, but the young daughter they had together.

This story has more suicides than one knows what to do with.

Plath's is most well known for her "Ariel" poems as well as her semi-autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar."

Her daughter, Frieda Hughes, also tried her hand at poetry but was never very good at it. Neither was her father Ted, for that matter.

According to the AFP: "Unmarried and childless, the 47-year-old Hughes had recently left his teaching post at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks' school of fisheries and ocean sciences to make pottery in a home studio."

His suicide occurs 46 years after his mother's. If you do the math, you can see he was barely even one when his mom stuck her head in the oven, leaving behind a poetic legacy for both scholars and artsy wannabes to marvel over for centuries.

If you'd like to read the full article, click here. Also check this one out too. Plath wrote the poem "Nick and the Candlestick" for her son.

Published by Jessica Schneider

I am a fiction writer as well as reviewer. I write for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Blogcritics, and work as the Books Editor for Monsters and Critics. I also co-founded Cosmoetica.  View profile

To comment, please sign in to your Yahoo! account, or sign up for a new account.