An Analysis Of Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy'

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” emphasizes the ill-fated relationship between a woman and her deceased father. The speaker conveys her paradoxical feelings for the one man who she worshipped during her young years, but feared his malicious influence and domination after his death. “I used to pray to recover you” and “at twenty I tried to die… and get back… to you” ( line 14, 63-64). Throughout the poem, Plath uses simplistic language, rhyme, and rhythm in order to charm and delay the malevolent spirits from her father. The poem begins with a childlike tone, misleading the reader on the upcoming subject matter.

(Gerisch, 1998, p. 740) Her relationships with both her father and her mother as told through the autobiographies showed a stunted personal growth from her father dying so early in her life. “In Plath’s poetry, her Electra persona grapples with the loss of a father (an Agamemnon-like charter) by attempting to digest him and then expel him from her system. Plath’s speaker is active in her pursuit to overcome her father’s looming presence.” (Whelan-Stewart, 2007, p. 217) Once more pointing towards Plath and the persona being one in the same, “I was ten when they buried you.” Both women’s fathers died when they were very young, Plath’s at age 8 and the Persona’s at age 10. This left Plath with an inability to separate her own self-image from that of her mother’s is what leads to the poems showing the female persona falling into the repetitious mistakes of her

Plath's poem "Daddy" describes feelings of oppression from childhood and conjures up 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 to be free of male domination. This poem starts out describing her struggle as one that has been unresolved because she was just a child when her father died. "Daddy, I have had to kill you. / You died before I had time / Marble-heavy, a bag full of God," (lines 6-8).

Whereas Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” is very hazy and full of descriptions about abuse and alcohol. In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting the two poems as they are in my eyes very similar, yet different. Sylvia Plath was a high string anxiety angered person and dealt with a lot growing up. Her dad died when she was 10 years old due to diabetes. Having to grow up without a father she tried to fill the place of her father almost by being forced to find a husband that was like her father.

This father represents Sylvia’s own father who died when she was young. She wants to destroy him but he cannot come back to life. His death has caused Sylvia to have problems with all the men in her future including her former husband Ted, who she also refers to in the poem. This is the first type of literary criticism that stands out, feminist ... ... middle of paper ... ...iterary Reference Center. Web.

Eleven days after Mary Shelley’s birth, her mother, the famed author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, succumbed to puerperal fever, leaving her [Mary Shelley’s] father, William Godwin, bereft of his beloved companion. In her honor, Godwin puts together a loving tribute entitled Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a sensitive and factual account of his deceased wife’s life. 2. The relationship between Mary Shelley and her stepmother was strained. The new Mrs. Godwin provoked Shelley’s ire by encroaching upon her privacy.

The readers find out he is having an affair with Lady Windermere’s mother. Erlynne left Windermere’s life for years to preserve her reputation. “Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.” The main scandal or gossip of the play is who Erlynne really was, and also Lady Windermere’s troubles with her husband. Word Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and prejudice.

Doing her studies, listening to her father and indulging her suitors, knowing that her duty as a woman is to marry once her sister is married. Yet once Kate is set to be married off, Bianca is a bit more rebellious in every scene that the reader finds her in. This is first noticed in act three scene one, where Bianca first meets her new tutors. After they argue over who gets to spend time with her first, she chastises them, saying, “Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong to strive for that which resteth in my choice.” (3.1.16-17) She continues by laying out her rules, something she would have never done in the past, saying, “I’ll not be tied to hours nor pointed times, but learn my lesson as I please myself.” (3.1.18-20) In these few words, there is a clear change in Bianca, she speaks to the tutors as their equal or even superior. The Bianca the readers are introduced to at the beginning of the play would never have spoken that way to a man.

Analysis of Daddy by Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath uses her poem, Daddy, to express deep emotions toward her father’s life and death. With passionate articulation, she verbally turns over her feelings of rage, abandonment, confusion and grief. Though this work is fraught with ambiguity, a reader can infer Plath’s basic story. Her father was apparently a Nazi soldier killed in World War II while she was young. Her statements about not knowing even remotely where he was while he was in battle, the only photograph she has left of him and how she chose to marry a man that reminded her of him elude to her grief in losing her father and missing his presence.

In the beginning of Plath’s poem, “The Colossus,” the speaker struggles in repairing the listener who has taken on ... ... middle of paper ... ...oire of poetry with a male personage acting as an opposing force. Her work is full of content hinting at her mental instability, yearning for her deceased father, and her desire to end her life. It can be understood that Plath had a sort of Elektra complex obsession with her father. In her personal life, it caused several suicide attempts (one every decade of her life) and her to seek another male to fill the role of her missing father. It was not until she encountered the poet Ted Hughes that Plath thought she had met her soul mate; it was also because of this fiery relationship that Plath tragically ended her life when she ended her seven-year marriage to Hughes after discovering his illicit affair.