Analysis Of Plath's 'The Father As A Muse'

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When thought about, family is widely imagined as a positive cornerstone of the foundation of an individual’s life. Families are imagined as consisting a mother and a father who raise their children from birth to adulthood to the best of their ability, usually resulting positively. Certain aspects of every family are different, making each family one of its own. One of these aspects can ultimately change a family forever and could alter the outcome of a child’s life and their profession. Parents are not aware all of the time that their decisions affect their children as much as they truly do. The choices taken by parents are choices that should be thought out very thoroughly so the outcome for their children’s lives will be positive. The idea …show more content…

In most of her poetry Plath wrote as the voice of a daughter and most centered around an issue with a father, which is why some say the father is her “muse” (420). Plath was especially trained in depicting the daughter as the victim and the father as the villain in her poetry (420). This shows that Plath felt sympathy for herself and wanted others to also. Rietz also made the statement, “Plath’s method in ‘Daddy’ was to create an image of her father so loathsome that she can reject it completely and kill the myth that outlived her father” (426). The “myth” of Otto Plath that Rietz makes mention of is the persona that Plath creates for her father based on tales she has heard about her father since she was young. This persona she knew of her father was not someone she was impressed with, but it was someone she obsessed over. Rietz included a statement in his article from Plath about her father stating, “He was an autocrat. I adored him and despised him and I probably wished many times that he were dead. When he obliged me and died, I imagined that I killed him” (417). The feeling of resentment toward her father in this statement is undeniable, but the wish of death upon him explains how deeply the resentment existed. It is very apparent how Plath felt about her father and it is also very apparent that he was an influence in her poetry. Rietz concludes his article by saying, “To a certain extent- and she seems to have been aware of this- Otto Plath was her muse

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