The son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes Nicholas Hughes has taken his own life.
It's often said that children of celebrities bear additional burdens simply by virtue of their DNA; here that DNA presents a double whammy. Plath is an icon to so many - and so many are still angry at Ted Hughes for the breakdown of their marriage. Their children have carried such a challenge through life, and seem to have managed it in quiet and with dignity.
Hughes must have known that in ending his own life that the comparisons with and commentary on his mother would increase. Even in misery and death, the poor man isn't "Nicholas;" he's the son of poets with emotional problems and an aura of literary celebrity.
Is - now was.
1 comment:
And of course we now know that the tendency to depression is inherited. And as much as we now tout the miracle antidepressants out there on the market they are addictive and do in some cause suicide to be a very viable option.
And yet we continue to be a quick fix society looking for the magic pill to solve it all.
Mother used to remind me that genius and insanity were separated by a very thin line. Maybe it is that ability to walk the tightrope and show it to others in writing or visual art or music which makes genius. How sad that we might now be medicating it all away.
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