Having a parental figure in your life can change you as a person in a negative or positive way. “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D. H. Lawrence are both works of literature that exemplify the meaning of the quotation of C.S Lewis. In this way, both works of literature were relatable when the authors provided daily life situations involving disillusionment, parental responsibility, and children having a troubled relationship with their parents. Literature improves our desires for life and enhances our critical thinking. C.S. Lewis quotes, “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and proves.” In this quote, C.S Lewis is stating that literary work is still developing by making the world appreciate the beauty of literature. C.S Lewis wants to ensure that literature is a work of art from one person’s ability to show their emotion through writing about their thoughts, emotions, and their daily lives. Literature adds to reality by enhancing a story that can be based on true events, it adds a fictional twist and a certain fantasy to our imagination. In Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy,” the speaker of the poem wants revenge on her own father by killing him. But later, the reader finds out that he is dead before she can even kill him. Even though her father is dead, the memories she has of him are haunting. In the poem, the speaker creates a figurative image of her father. Roger Platizky, who did a critical essay on “Daddy,” said she described her father as a “Nazi, Swastika, barbed wire, fascist, brute, devil, and vampire” (Platizky 105). The speaker also describes her father as a “black shoe,” meaning that she had to live with him watchfully when she was a child. In “The Rocking Horse Winner,” the author D.H. Lawrence describes a mother who is incapable of loving her children. The mother’s greed for money and social status is the reason why her son Paul rides his rocking horse to predict the winning horse in the horse races. The author uses the rocking horse as a symbol of Paul’s desire to be loved by his mother. The author also uses the whispering house as a symbol of the family’s financial problems. The whispering house is a metaphor for the family’s financial problems because the house whispers to the mother that she needs more money. The mother’s greed for money is the reason why the house whispers to her. The works of literature “Daddy” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” were unique in themselves and an example of how literature can add to reality. It is what truly makes them “literary works.”
Works Cited:
Bentley, Greg. "Hester and the homo-social order: an uncanny search for subjectivity in D. H. Lawrence's 'The Rocking-Horse Winner'." D.H. Lawrence Review 34-35 (2010): 55+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.
Lawrence, D. H. “The Rocking Horse Winner.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. X.J. Kennedy & Dana Gloia 12th ed. New Jersey: Pearson 2012. 592. Print.
Plath, Sylvia. “Daddy.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. X.J. Kennedy & Dana Gloia 12th ed. New Jersey: Pearson 2012. 1116. Print.
Platizky, Roger. "Plath's 'Daddy
It tends to be the trend for women who have had traumatic childhoods to be attracted to men who epitomize their emptiness felt as children. Women who have had unaffectionate or absent fathers, adulterous husbands or boyfriends, or relatives who molested them seem to become involved in relationships with men who, instead of being the opposite of the “monsters” in their lives, are the exact replicas of these ugly men. Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” is a perfect example of this unfortunate trend. In this poem, she speaks directly to her dead father and her husband who has been cheating on her, as the poem so indicates.
Even with the differences in relationship with their fathers, both Sylvia Plath and Theodore Roethke struggled with depression and mental illness due to losing a major parental figure like their fathers at young ages. It is difficult to lose someone and you can see in Plath’s and Roethke’s writings that they had complicated relationships with their fathers that shaped and influenced their
The tale of Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” by D. H. Lawrence are stories that use internal monologue, and symbolism to bring the reader inside the mind of its characters, exposing complicated inner battles of good and evil. Both authors use distorted reality as a metaphor for mental and spiritual chaos, confusion, and death as an inescapable consequence of sin.
In both “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the authors take critical aim at two staples of mainstream values, materialism and tradition respectively. Both authors approach these themes through several different literary devices such as personification and symbolism; however, it is the authors' use of characterization that most develop their themes. We'll be taking a look at the parallel passages in the stories that advance their themes particularly when those passages involve both of the authors' subtle character descriptions, and why this method of character development is so powerful in conveying the authors' messages.
Plath claimed that in this poem she was adopting the persona of a girl with an Electra complex whose father had been a fascist, but while the poem is not completely autobiographical, it contains several obvious references to her own life. For example, here she refers to the picture of her father:
The. Lawrence, D.H.. " Rocking Horse Winner, by DH Lawrence. " Rocking Horse Winner, by DH Lawrence. N.p., n.d. Web.
In conclusion, "The Rocking-Horse Winner," written by D. H. Lawrence is a story about the family and the feelings of shame that we acquire from our parents that could have disastrous consequences for the whole family. We saw the effects of a mother's obsession with money, a son's plan to please his mother, and the prices the family paid for their obsession with money.
Sylvia Plath’s jarring poem ‘Daddy’, is not only the exploration of her bitter and tumultuous relationship with her father, husband and perhaps the male species in general but is also a strong expression of resentment against the oppression of women by men and the violence and tyranny men can and have been held accountable for. Within the piece, the speaker creates a figurative image of her father by using metaphors to describe her relationship with him: “Not God but a Swastika” , he is a “… brute” , even likening him to leader of the Nazi Party; Adolf Hitler: “A man in black with a Meinkampf look .” Overall, the text is a telling recount of her hatred towards her father and her husband of “Seven years” and the tolling affect it has had on
Plath, Sylvia. The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.
Throughout the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath, the author struggles to escape the memory of her father who died when she was only ten years old. She also expresses anger at her husband, Ted Hughes, who abandoned her for another woman. The confessional poem begins with a series of metaphors about Plath's father which progress from godlike to demonic. Near the end, a new metaphor emerges, when the author realizes that her estranged husband is actually the vampire of her dead father, sent to torture her. This hyperbole is central to the meaning of the poem. Lines 75-76 express a hope that they will stop oppressing her: "Daddy, you can lie back now / There ís a stake in your fat black heart." She concludes that her father can return to the grave, because she has finally rid herself of the strain he had caused her, by killing his vampire form. Despite this seeming closure, however, we will see that the author does not overcome her trauma.
At the young age of eight Sylvia’s father had died due to complications from his diabetes. Her relationship with her father wasn’t the normal father daughter bond. Sylvia was scared of her father as he was a very strict and stern man. He had very high standards for Sylvia which she found hard to reach. After her father had died there was some heartbreak and sadness felt but there wasn’t enough heartbreak for it to bypass all of the selfishness her father had. After his death Sylvia had wrote a poem called “Daddy” where you can see the hatred she had felt “There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.” (www.poets.org, 2014). although there was mostly hatred you can also see how even though they had a bad relationship she still misses him “Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do.” (www.poets.org, 2014). Along with writing a poem about her dad Sylvia had also wrote many other poems, her first poem was even published in the Boston Herald’s ch...
Piedmont, Elisabeth. "An overview of 'The Rocking-Horse Winner,'." Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
The Rocking-Horse Winner is a tragic story that demonstrates how materialism is very destructive in people’s lives. D.H. Lawrence uses one of the main characters, Hester, to symbolize how greed heavily affects the idea of materialism. Hester’s need for money develops the idea that happiness and love is destroyed by the need for money. Lawrence uses money in her short story to convey the idea of how neglect from a mother destroys an innocent, young child such as Paul. Lawrence’s symbolism reveals that children like Paul need love and compassion from their elders. Hester, Paul’s rocking horse and the whispering of the house represent greed, selfishness, and love. They also reveal the character’s real feelings and thoughts of neglect, detachment, greed and selfishness.
Sylvia Plath?s poem "Daddy" describes her feelings of oppression from her childhood and conjures the struggle many women face in a male-dominated society. The conflict of this poem is male authority versus the right of a female to control her own life and be free of male domination. Plath?s conflicts begin with her father and continue into the relationship between her and her husband. This conflict is examined in lines 71-80 of "Daddy" in which Plath compares the damage her father caused to that of her husband.
Sylvia Plath has brought the attention of many Women’s studies supporters while being recognized as a great American poet. Most of her attention has come as a result of her tragic suicide at age thirty, but many of her poems reflect actual events throughout her life, transformed into psychoanalytical readings. One of Plath’s most renowned poems is “Daddy”. In this poem there are ideas about a woman’s relationship with men, a possible insight on aspects of Plath’s life, and possible influences from the theories of Sigmund Freud.