The Bee God

The Bee God is a poem by the English poet Ted Hughes, published in his 1998 collection Birthday Letters. Borrowing the bee imagery of Sylvia Plath's The Arrival of the Bee Box, it reflects on her mental illness and her father's hold over her, and is studied in HSC English Advanced Module A: Textual Conversations.

This poem borrows the metaphor of the bees used by Plath in The Arrival of the Bee Box to offer a similar examination of her mental state, and the towering presence of Otto Hughes in his daughter’s life – specifically, his role in her mental illness.

The opening line, ‘When you wanted bees I never dreamed / It meant your Daddy had come up out of the well.’ utilises the metaphor of the ‘well’ to describe Plath’s subconsciousness, as Hughes reflects his ambivalence about her father re-emerging. As in Plath’s poem, the bees in The Bee God represent Plath’s mental illness. As such, by casting Plath as an abbess presiding over a nunnery of bees, Hughes suggests that Plath maintains a degree of control over her psyche. The morbid imagery in ‘But you bowed over your bees / As you bowed over your Daddy’ conjures the image of Plath observing her father lying in his coffin, as Hughes reminds us of Otto’s death and thus of his unabating presence in Plath’s life. Hughes’ deliberate decision to constantly refer to Otto as ‘Daddy’ reminds us of the role he played in Plath’s life, and ensures that she remains restricted to a child-like status.

Plath’s mental illness, and Hughes’ inability to locate a stable sense of self within her, is reflected in the poem’s plural imagery of her new selves. Hughes then describes the act of freeing the bees, but they proceed to attack him. This attack metaphorically represents how Hughes was directly exposed to Plath’s psychosis. By depicting the bees as fanatics for their god, Hughes references Otto, and his god-like power over Plath’s mind.

The final two lines, ‘Deaf to your pleas’ conveys how Plath had no control over her psychosis, while ‘as the fixed stars / At the bottom of the well.’ conveys the idea that they are coming from somewhere dark and mysterious.

With The Bee God, Hughes reflects on the grip Otto Plath maintained on his daughter after his death, and how it affected his relationship with Sylvia. We see him try to make sense of her psychosis, but ultimately fail to find any answers or resolution.