 Pictured: The New Yorker’s celebrated editor, William Shawn
Plath’s poem, “Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest” talks of the “black November” in the year of 1956 which severely escalated the Cold War. The character of “Father Shawn” may well be the editor of The New Yorker at the time, William Shawn. As an editor, Shawn seemed to be one of the few journalists with a conscience. He insisted, for example, that an entire issue of the magazine be dedicated to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Writers loved William Shawn, and J.D. Salinger even dedicated his novel, Franny and Zooey, to Shawn, who had first serialized Salinger’s work in two separate stories.[1] In her poem, “Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest,” Plath places Shawn in the position of a holy man (“Father Shawn”) speaking to a spirit who walks the earth. Shawn asks the newspaper-man’s question: “How now” and he directs him to “simply tell.” The news of the day of course was the Cold War and the related Hungarian Revolution. Meanwhile, British and French troops had moved in on the Suez Canal (“Gnaws me through” and “this sorry pass”) with Israel, against Egypt. Nikita Khrushchev threatened to rain his rockets down on London (“The day of doom”). America’s president Eisenhower believed that British imperialism was finished, that Arab nationalism was going to be lasting, and that the Suez Canal was irretrievably lost. Eisenhower was angry at Britain for occupying the canal and not informing him. In “Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest,” Plath saw the love of territory to be “too great love / Of flawed earth-flesh,” with governments forgetting about the nearly unseen who live there. The Hungarian Revolution had temporarily paralyzed the Kremlin, “Some damned condition,” and “shriveling in torment,” until the Russian tanks came and crushed the Hungarian student protesters. Plath’s last stanza of her “Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest” reflects the national guilt of watching and doing nothing. Plath’s poem, “November Graveyard” began on September 9, 1956 per her calendar, with the worst of this horror yet to come. At the time of her writing the poem, anti-Communist protesting had escalated and journalists exposed the Soviet’s oppression. By late October and through mid-November, thousands of freedom fighters had been massacred and many more were forced to flee, setting the scene of Plath’s poem. Plath wrote to her mother in early November that she had been depressed and almost physically sickened by the news of both Britain bombing Egypt in the Suez Crisis, and the Hungarian Revolution. America watched in shame. Eisenhower had pledged to keep out of it, for fear of starting a full-scale war with the Soviets. Plath’s personal guilt about doing nothing during this conflict may lie in the un-restful “Monologue at 3 a.m.” written on October 3, 1956. The poem has been compared in mood and format to Louis Simpson’s “Summer Storm” (Peel, 147). Outwardly, of course, it is a poem of Plath missing Hughes. But since the end of July that year, martial law had been imposed upon Poland following an anti-Communist revolt. The poem inside the poem appears to be that Plath grieves over that almanac which displays the land of Eastern Europe in its fury and drenching blood, while she does nothing but sit mute and twitch in discomfort. Unsurprisingly then, Plath’s poem, “The Glutton,” written on April 27, 1956, is a portrait of British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden. Eden had made a remark summarizing the Western position, to which it seems Plath and the world thought he should have “Cupped quick to mouth.” Eden said: “We do not wish to move a finger” for the Hungarians. On this same date, doubts about Eden’s future as prime minister were being expressed in the papers as his personal ratings plummeted. Plath played on the nation of Hungary’s name with “hunger-stung”; Eden’s Englishness shows in the drink of “wassail” as he enjoys his “prime parts” and rich meals. Known to be quite stylish, Eden was “So fitted” in his suits. In her pocket calendar, Plath referred to “The Glutton” as a “good, small, hard, packed poem.” Also on the day Plath wrote “The Glutton,” Nikita Khrushchev departed London with Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin. It had only been months before, back in February 1956, when Khrushchev had publicly made a bitter attack on his predecessor Stalin, and the world had held hope that the Soviets might ease their pressure on Hungary. In an April 26, 1956 letter to her mother, Plath wrote that she had attended the reception of the Soviet leaders and shook Bulganin’s hand. She had called him a “dear, white-bearded little man with clear blue eyes,” and “rubbed elbows” with Anthony Eden. In those times of American McCarthyism, jokes had been made that Plath would not be allowed back into the States for her Communist sympathies. Yet all that was changing as the Soviets showed their fiercer side. [1] Franny and Zooey would later be a great influence on Plath’s 1961 poem, “Tulips.” See my book, Fixed Stars Govern a Life: Decoding Sylvia Plath, volume one (2014, Stephen F. Austin State University Press) for more. ANTHONY EDEN, ANTI-COMMUNIST, ARAB NATIONALISM, BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER, BRITISH FOREIGN MINISTER ANTHONY EDEN, BRITISH IMPERIALISM, COLD WAR, COMMUNISM, DIALOGUE BETWEEN GHOST AND PRIEST, EARLY POEM, EASTERN EUROPE, EGYPT, EISENHOWER, ENGLAND, GREAT BRITAIN, HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION, HUNGARIAN STUDENT PROTESTERS, HUNGARY, ISRAEL, KHRUSHCHEV, LOUIS SIMPSON, MCCARTHYISM, MONOLOGUE AT 3 A.M., NATIONAL GUILT, NEW YORKER EDITOR WILLIAM SHAWN, NOVEMBER 1956, NOVEMBER GRAVEYARD, PLATH POEM, REVOLT, SOVIET PREMIER NIKOLAI BULGANIN, SOVIET UNION, SOVIETS, STALIN, SUEZ CANAL, SUEZ CRISIS, SUMMER STORM, SYLVIA PLATH, TED HUGHES, THE GLUTTON, THE KREMLIN, THE NEW YORKER, UK, UNITED KINGDOM, WILLIAM SHAWN, WM SHAWN
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