"The Shot" appears in Ted Hughes's 1998 collection Birthday Letters, which focuses on his relationship with the American poet Sylvia Plath. Hughes and Plath had an infamously tumultuous relationship and were married but separated at the time of Plath's death by suicide in 1963. The poem examines Plath's intense relationship with her father, Otto, and its impact on her perception and treatment of other men. Using an extended metaphor, the poem compares Plath to a bullet and suggests that Otto's untimely death during Plath's childhood pulled the "trigger" that shot his daughter down a destructive life path—the ultimate aim of which was a reunion, in her death, with the powerful, "godlike" father she lost. "The Shot" explores themes of family trauma, obsessive love, fate, and masculinity.

• Read the full text of “The Shot”

• “The Shot” Summary

• “The Shot” Themes

  • 

    Obsessive Love and Self-Destruction

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-8
    • Lines 15-17
    • Lines 32-38
  • 

    Family Trauma

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 7-17
    • Lines 20-25
    • Lines 28-31
    • Lines 39-42
    • Lines 43-44
  • 

    Power, Fate, and Agency

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 3-4
    • Lines 7-17
    • Lines 20-22
    • Lines 32-34
    • Lines 34-38
    • Lines 39-44

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Shot”

  • Lines 1-6

    Your worship needed ...
    ... god-seeker. A god-finder.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 7-10

    Your Daddy had ...
    ... your whole life.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 10-15

    You ricocheted ...
    ... Of kinetic energy.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 15-19

    The elect ...
    ... along your flightpath.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 20-25

    But inside your ...
    ... You were undeflected.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 26-31

    You were gold-jacketed, ...
    ... keep you true.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 32-38

    Till your real ...
    ... of the god.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 39-44

    In my position, ...
    ... watch, your nightgown.

    

    

    

    

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• “The Shot” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Extended Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where extended metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Lines 7-16
    • Line 19
    • Lines 23-28
    • Lines 30-31
    • Lines 32-34
    • Lines 35-38
    • Lines 40-41

  • Asyndeton

    

    

    

    

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    Where asyndeton appears in the poem:

    • Lines 17-18: “They were mind-stuff, / Provisional, speculative, mere auras.”
    • Lines 26-27: “You were gold-jacketed, solid silver, / Nickel-tipped.”
    • Line 42: “Godless, happy, quieted.”
    • Line 44: “A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-5: “infatuation / That”
    • Lines 7-8: “God / When”
    • Lines 9-10: “flash / You”
    • Lines 10-11: “ricocheted / The”
    • Lines 11-12: “career / With”
    • Lines 12-13: “fury / Of”
    • Lines 13-14: “bullet / That”
    • Lines 14-15: “foot-pound / Of”
    • Lines 15-16: “elect / More”
    • Lines 20-21: “Kleenex / And”
    • Lines 23-24: “rebounds / And”
    • Lines 27-28: “perfect / As”
    • Lines 30-31: “groove / To”
    • Lines 32-33: “target / Hid”
    • Lines 34-35: “time / Vague”
    • Lines 35-36: “know / I”
    • Lines 39-40: “witchdoctor / Might”
    • Lines 43-44: “managed / A”

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “god”
    • Line 3: “gods”
    • Line 5: “god”
    • Line 6: “god,” “god”
    • Line 7: “Daddy,” “God”
    • Line 33: “Daddy”
    • Line 34: “god”
    • Line 38: “god”
    • Line 42: “Godless”

  • Apostrophe

    

    

    

    

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    Where apostrophe appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-44

  • Idiom

    

    

    

    

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    Where idiom appears in the poem:

    • Lines 33-34: “Your Daddy, / The god with the smoking gun”

• “The Shot” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Jocks
  • Infatuation
  • Deified
  • Ricocheted
  • Kinetic energy
  • Elect
  • Speculative
  • Provisional
  • Sodden
  • Diminuendo
  • Ether
  • Rifling groove
  • Witchdoctor
  • (Location in poem: Line 3: “Ordinary jocks became gods”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Shot”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “The Shot” Speaker

• “The Shot” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “The Shot”

• More “The Shot” Resources

  • External Resources

    • "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath — Read "Daddy," the famous poem by Sylvia Plath to which Ted Hughes alludes in "The Shot."

    • Plath's Account of Meeting Hughes — Learn firsthand about the night Sylvia Plath met Ted Hughes in this intimate entry from Plath's journals, courtesy of the British Library. 

    • Sylvia Plath's Biography — Learn more about Sylvia Plath's life and work from this short biography, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.

    • Ted Hughes's Biography — Learn more about Hughes's life and work in this short biography, courtesy of the Poetry Foundation.

    • An Introduction to Birthday Letters — Read more about the creation and content of Birthday Letters, the 1998 poetry collection in which "A Shot" was published, via The British Library.

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Ted Hughes

    • A Memory

    • Anniversary

    • A Picture of Otto

    • Bayonet Charge

    • Cat and Mouse

    • Football at Slack

    • Fulbright Scholars

    • Full Moon and Little Frieda

    • Hawk Roosting

    • Relic

    • Roe-Deer

    • Snowdrop

    • Telegraph Wires

    • The Harvest Moon

    • The Horses

    • The Jaguar

    • The Other

    • The Thought Fox

    • Wind

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