The silence was broken when he finally allowed us to travel with him to the past the life that he and his wife shared before her death. As we go on reading the poem, it is as if we are listening to him as he flipped through the pages of their life together as a couple.
This poem is Daffodils.
To be able to understand the message of this poem, I believe that it is important to look at the person behind the poem his background and his personal life - because this is a kind of poem that speaks of the life of the writer. This is a poem that allows a reader to look into ones private life. This poem, I believe, explains the relationship he once had with his wife and gives light to the issue surrounding her suicide.
The author before Daffodils
The author, Ted Hughes, was introduced in an article entitled Flowered Memories An Analysis of Ted Hughes Daffodil. It says, Edward James Hughes was English Poet Laureate from 1984 to his death in 1998. Famous for his violent poems about the innocent savagery of animals, Ted Hughes was born on Mytholmroyd, in the West Riding district of Yorkshire, which became the psychological terrain of his later poetry (The Literary Encyclopedia).
Hughes married the American Poet, Sylvia Plath. In 1963, Plath died and was said to have committed suicide. The couple was blessed with two children who were still at a young age when Plath died.
The author and Daffodils
February 1998 marked the end of Hughes silence when Birthday Letters, a collection of 88 poems written over 25 years, was published. Among these 88 poems is Daffodils.
Daffodils is composed of 66 lines. The poem is written conversationally in a simple manner. It is described as a free verse just like the other poems in the Birthday Letters. In this poem, the author uses the first person point of view and uses the word you to directly address his deceased wife, Sylvia Plath.
Remember how we picked the daffodils
Nobody else remembers, but I remember.
In these first two lines of the poem, Hughes was reminiscing the days that he had with his wife. Even with these first two lines, it is evident that the author recollects with a note of sadness and longing for the gone days. He moved on with a happy picture of his family, with their daughter, as they were harvesting daffodils. But the crisp line She has forgotten ended the brief happy tone of his nostalgia.
The reminiscence of the author went on when he recollected that they sold the flowers for sevenpence a dozen. He then paused and blurted out his feelings that what they have done was like a sacrilege. This realization by the author can be explained by his background as a hunter. In an article entitled The Biography of Ted Hughes, he was presented as a country man and a hunter. Furthermore, he was considered as a nature poet and his writing is considered a continuation of his earlier passion which is hunting.
Despite the recognition that the selling of the flowers was a form of irreverence to nature, Hughes continued to give us a picture of their life before and their financial condition that somewhat justified their act. He asked himself, Were we so poor This line is not more of a question but an introduction to the instances that he enumerated to substantiate his claim that they were poor. He remembered that they were hungry then to the point that they were pushed to convert everything to profit. Poverty and empty stomach were the first reason he gave that led them to sell the daffodils.
They simply came,
And they keep on coming.
These lines gave way to the second reason why they decided to sell the daffodils. He was looking at the time when they both believed that the daffodils will never go away. They see the daffodils as a windfall.
But the second stanza did not just end with this belief. It was made clear in the same stanza that there was a realization of their innocence. The persona realized that the daffodils were a fleeting glance of the everlasting. It is at this point in the poem that there was recognition, I believe, of the Creator that controls the life both of the daffodils and other creations. Never thought they were a last blessing, I believe, speaks of the end of the relationship shared by the persona and the person he was talking to as well as their activity of selling the flowers they harvested as a family.
In the same stanza, the persona also showed how they viewed their union as husband and wife. We knew wed live forever, they believed. However, in the same manner that he acknowledged their mistaken view of the lifespan of daffodils, the persona admitted that like the daffodils their marriage and even their individual lives will come to an end.
After the persona honestly laid down their misconceptions as a couple, he then looked back to the time when they had to go through the tedious communal act of harvesting the daffodils and of selling them for sevenpence a bunch.
His reminiscence of the time when they harvested the flowers brought a bittersweet memory that the can move a reader to tears. The memory of working together in harvesting the flowers reminded him of their communal activities. He vividly described how the persona and his wife bent together to gather the daffodils. He went on giving us a picture of the daffodils that they gathered. These were sweet memories of a couple a husband and a wife who had the chance of doing a task together, of helping each other. However, a bitter memory is sandwiched by the happy thoughts. In between the recollection of the harvest days, he remembered that in the rain of April, it was her last April. It was the end of the days when they could work together as a couple. It was also the end of their business of selling the daffodils.
Despite that painful recollection, the persona continued with his reminiscence of the days when they worked together as a couple to prepare the flowers for market. He remembered the details of this activity clearly from the piling, grouping then finally selling the flowers.
From the innocent and happy reminiscence of their early days as a couple, the author moved on with a description of an upcoming gloomy day that led to the end of their task as husband and wife. This end was brought about by the fast growth and thickening of the flowers, faster than they could harvest them. This signifies the overwhelming tasks that burdened the couple and may have turned an innocent survival activity into a complex venture. The activity which can be considered as a bonding time of the family had become a heavy task that led to their alienation. When he finally said that they lost their wedding present, the scissors, it marked the end of a simple, poor yet happy life as a couple and as a family.
We sold them, to wither
The crop thickened faster than we could thin it.
Finally we were overwhelmed
And we lost our wedding present scissors.
These four lines are worth noting because, I believe, they served as a turning point in the lives of the persona, his wife and their family of Hughes, Plath and their children. This spoke of a sad picture of a disintegrating family. The essential ties that bound them- the activity of harvesting and selling daffodils together and the role of the scissors were, at this point in time, lost. These may have represented the crises that the couple faced that led to their separation.
Before the poem ended, a deep longing is apparent in Hughes. He lets us into his mind which still thinks of his wife as he sees the flowers everyday. In this second to the last stanza, he was talking to Plath in a way that a very lonely person who was left behind by a departed loved one relates. He talks as if he believes that Plath was looking and listening to him at that very moment even with the full knowledge that she is somewhere else, a place beyond his reach. He talks of the same bulbs, the same flowers that blossomed every March. This picture of continues growth and cycle of the daffodils, from the time the flowers blossomed until the time they are harvested, tell us of his continues survival despite the death of Plath. The last stanza ended with a picture of a buried scissors which signifies the death of Plath and the end of their relationship. But even when the flowers harvested by her every April forgot about her, the second to the last stanza continues to tell us of Hughes memories with Plath and their life together that will never fade.
Lessons and views from Daffodils
This poem has a way of letting us into the lives of the couple and allowing us to look at them during their happy days and even during the time when circumstances and problems in life caused their family to disintegrate. It is a romantic piece of art in a way that a husband, piece by piece, brings together the private memories of their union, from the mundane tasks to the enormous burdens and responsibilities.
Just like many of the families in our society today, the relationship of Plath and Hughes was broken when the bond that brings couples together is severed by overwhelming responsibilities and the increasing complexities of modern life. Usually the bonds that bring families together are the simple task that bring them joy and fulfillment and not necessarily the lucrative ventures.
The use of everyday activities and familiar sceneries in our immediate surroundings has a powerful way of conveying emotions in a romantic way. The daffodils that regenerates every time, loudly speaks of a mans continues thoughts of his wife and how he misses the life that they shared together.
The Daffodils speak of a man who desired no harm to happen to his wife, a man who, together with his wife, suffered from a broken relationship as a result of overwhelming problems and responsibilities, and a lonely man who sorely misses the wife that he cared about.
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