Ghost in the Black Box: Analysis of ‘Black Coat’ by Ted Hughes

In ‘Black Coat’, Ted Hughes poignantly portrays himself as failing to become a ‘blank slate’ upon which Sylvia Plath projects her father. Through a series of meaningful juxtapositions and philosophical allusions—such as tabula rasa and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s beetle in the box—Hughes effectively emphasises the multiplicity of truths and the imperviousness of the human mind.