The Shot was written by English poet Ted Hughes and published in his 1998 collection Birthday Letters, a series of poems addressed largely to his late wife Sylvia Plath.

What is The Shot about?

The poem uses the extended metaphor of a bullet fired from a gun to convey how the death of Sylvia Plath's father Otto set her on a destructive trajectory, with Hughes cast as the figure she finally struck.

Which module is The Shot studied in for the HSC?

The Shot is studied in HSC English Advanced Module A: Textual Conversations, where Hughes's Birthday Letters is paired with the poetry of Sylvia Plath.

Which Plath poems pair well with The Shot?

It can be paired with Nick and the Candlestick, and it converses directly with Daddy through the line "Your Daddy, the god with the smoking gun."

What techniques should students analyse in The Shot?

Focus on the extended metaphor of the bullet, direct address, allusion to Plath's own poems and emotionally loaded imagery such as the sob-sodden Kleenex.

The Shot

by Ted HughesPrescribed for HSC English 2024–2027 (NESA) · Last reviewed September 2026The Shot is a poem by English poet Ted Hughes, published in his 1998 collection Birthday Letters. Addressed to Sylvia Plath, it uses the extended metaphor of a bullet to trace how her father's death propelled her through life.

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Summary

The Shot is a poem by English poet Ted Hughes, published in his 1998 collection Birthday Letters. Addressed to Sylvia Plath, it uses the extended metaphor of a bullet to trace how her father's death propelled her through life. It is studied in HSC English Advanced Module A: Textual Conversations alongside Plath's poetry.

Key Idea

This poem explores the use (but failure) of memory to understand the present.

It can be paired with Plath's poem Nick and the Candlestick.

Context

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was one of the leading English poets of the twentieth century and served as Poet Laureate from 1984. He married American poet Sylvia Plath in 1956; the marriage broke down in 1962 and Plath took her own life in early 1963. For decades Hughes stayed largely silent about the relationship while critics, particularly some feminist readers, held him responsible for Plath's decline. Birthday Letters, published in 1998 only months before his death, broke that silence: its poems, addressed mostly to Plath, revisit their shared history and respond, often directly, to her own writing. The Shot engages with the mythology surrounding Otto Plath, Sylvia's father, who died when she was eight and who dominates poems such as Daddy. Reading the poem within Module A's textual conversation means weighing Hughes's retrospective self-positioning against Plath's earlier framing of the same events.

Overview

In The Shot, Hughes uses the extended metaphor of a bullet exploding from the barrel of a gun to convey how the death of Otto Plath sent Sylvia Plath onto a destructive trajectory that led her to Ted as she sought to both avoid and confront the trauma her father caused her.

Beginning with ‘Your worship needed a god,’ Hughes suggests the hole left in Plath’s life by the passing of her father, and also the role that father-figure would play. Hughes then recounts Plath’s past attempts at seeking such a relationship, but his characterisation of her ex-boyfriends as ‘Ordinary jocks’ (which also oozes with resentment and jealousy) suggests that no one was able to meet her requirements.

The imagery ‘Your Daddy had been aiming you at God’ encapsulates how Otto’s death sent her searching for someone to replace him as a father-figure in her life. Obviously, that person was Hughes. He makes a direct reference to Plath’s poem Daddy through his use of ‘Your Daddy, the god with the smoking gun.’ In that poem, Plath explores the psychological harm her relationship with her father caused her, and her resentment towards him for it. She also confesses that she found release and closure in creating a similarly toxic relationship with Hughes. Indicating his feelings towards being characterised by Plath as a ‘vampire’ – and indeed offering something of an explanation for why she felt that way – Hughes makes light of her suffering in his dismissive catalogue of her tears and weekend panics.

The final stanza articulates Hughes’ inability to care for her, as he relies on the absurd ‘witchdoctor’ to provide help. Instead of being able to save Plath, Hughes was only able to recover some intimate, sentimental artefacts – ‘A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.’

Hughes’ poem therefore represents an admission of both helplessness, guilt and frustration towards his relationship with Plath that builds on his initial acknowledgement of vulnerability and ignorance that is referenced to in the final lines of Fulbright Scholars.

Quote Table

‘I managed / A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.’
Technique
Accumulation
Idea
Impact of Plath’s father on him
‘Even the cheek-scar, / Where you seemed to have side-swiped concrete, / Served as a rifling groove’
Technique
Visual imagery, Military jargon
Idea
Perspective on Plath
‘Trajectory perfect / As through ether’
Technique
Military jargon, Simile
Idea
Perspective on Plath
‘Your Daddy had been aiming you at God / When his death touched the trigger.’
Technique
Intertextuality, Metaphor Imagery
Idea
Perspective on Plath’s relationship with her father

Quote	Technique	Idea
‘I managed / A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.’	Accumulation	Impact of Plath’s father on him
‘Even the cheek-scar, / Where you seemed to have side-swiped concrete, / Served as a rifling groove’	Visual imagery, Military jargon	Perspective on Plath
‘Trajectory perfect / As through ether’	Military jargon, Simile	Perspective on Plath
‘Your Daddy had been aiming you at God / When his death touched the trigger.’	Intertextuality, Metaphor Imagery	Perspective on Plath’s relationship with her father

More Plath and Hughes poetry

Plath and Hughes - Visual Aid

Visual aidPlath and Hughes
Themes	Memory, truth, mythopoesis, gender, social accountability, faith, feminism, mental health
Context	Plath's Ariel collection was published post-humously after her death Hughes' The Birthday Letters responds to his involvement in her death Hughes utilises techniques characteristic of Plath's collection to tell a new story, or an old one from his perspective.
Poetry Pairings	Lady Lazarus and Red Fever 103 and Fever The Arrival of the Bee Box and The Bee God
Mythopoesis Quotes	'I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air.' "O my enemy. / Do I terrify?" 'Our room was red. A judgement chamber. / Shut casket for gems.' "You revelled in red. / I felt it raw"

Frequently Asked Questions

Who wrote The Shot?: The Shot was written by English poet Ted Hughes and published in his 1998 collection Birthday Letters, a series of poems addressed largely to his late wife Sylvia Plath.
What is The Shot about?: The poem uses the extended metaphor of a bullet fired from a gun to convey how the death of Sylvia Plath's father Otto set her on a destructive trajectory, with Hughes cast as the figure she finally struck.
Which module is The Shot studied in for the HSC?: The Shot is studied in HSC English Advanced Module A: Textual Conversations, where Hughes's Birthday Letters is paired with the poetry of Sylvia Plath.
Which Plath poems pair well with The Shot?: It can be paired with Nick and the Candlestick, and it converses directly with Daddy through the line "Your Daddy, the god with the smoking gun."
What techniques should students analyse in The Shot?: Focus on the extended metaphor of the bullet, direct address, allusion to Plath's own poems and emotionally loaded imagery such as the sob-sodden Kleenex.

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The Shot

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