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 …show more content…
The playfulness of rhyme makes the texts violence and disturbing metaphors about the speakers father creates an even creepier tone that matches perfectly with the themes of the piece. The abundance and repetition of Oo is almost suffocating and gives a childish tone to the piece, although the subject matter is far from it: oo makes this poem seem more disturbing than a nursery rhyme – it 's not a bedtime story, but a howl in the night. Furthermore, the poem follows a free verse rhyme scheme in which allows Plath to show that perhaps the death of her father and husband has set her free, however, there is still some iambic rhythm that is carried in some sections of the piece. Many critics have argued that the rhyme gives lyricism to the piece, often associated with happiness in terms of poetry: Despite that she uses free verse, the poem has much musicality due to rhyme. It is this nursery rhyme style that gave the idea of a more rigid structure in the undone version of Daddy. Although not as fixed as Sonnet or Haiku form, the erasure of certain words makes the poems form look almost purposeful similar and removes the haunting and disturbing rhyme of the original. Not only does this allow the reader to see that there is love for the speakers father in the undone piece but it also shows the adoration for her father to be more developed than completely removed, like in the 1962 version. The undone poem reverberates hauntingly to Plath’s original work, both having their own distinctive beauty and
“Daddy” contains allusions to World War 2 with images of a swastika in the sky (line 46-47) and references to German concentration camps, “A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen” (line 33). She states her father clearly to be a German man with “I thought every German was you” (line 29), “with your Luftwaffe” (line 42), “And your Aryan eye, bright blue” (line 44). Plath alludes to the popular anti-Semitism of her era in Germany depicted in lines 31-40. She then describes herself as a “Jew” to degrade herself against her German father. The diction of her lines “Chuffing me off like a Jew” (line 32) and “I think I may well be a Jew” (line 35) dehumanizes Jews in which she uses to also describe herself. To describe even more hatred towards her father, the multiple usages of the word “black” (lines 2, 51, 55, 65, 76) depicts her father as a dark menacing shadow in her life that has a evil dark “black” heart. She compares him to the man she married when Plath states, “I made a model of you” (line 64). She then describes that husband as a vampire that drank her blood (lines 72-74), because he reminded Plath of her father in the statement “They always knew it was you” (line 79). In Plath’s mind she only married her husband to be reminded of her father but soon realized it was a toxic relationship in line 80 in which she says “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through”.
In American society, the common stereotype is that the father has the role of the dominant figure in the household. Sylvia Plath and Sharon Olds may come across as two seemingly different poets, however, they are really quite similar, especially in their driving forces behind their writing styles in poetry. The lives of Plath and Olds are both expressive of the realities of a father-dominated family, in which both of these poets lost their fathers at a young age. This is significant because both poets have faced a similar traumatic event that has had everlasting effects on their adult womanhood, which is reflected in their writings. For both these woman, their accesses to father-daughter relationships were denied based on life circumstances. Ironically, their fathers were their muses for writing and are what made them the women they are today.
Plath never got over the loss of her father and her failed marriage to well known poet Ted Hughes. She wrote, "Me, I never knew the love of a father, the love of a steady blood-related man after the age of eight .... I hated men because they didn't stay around and love me like a father" (cited in Hughes & McCullough, 1982, pp. 266267). In an article, Jon Rosenblatt describes her poetry by saying “Whether the poems take place inside a house or in the countryside, the identical metaphorical relationships are established between a vulnerable speaker and a destructive environment.” By the end of “Daddy” the speaker comes off as a force to be reckoned with and her message is final
Two of the most popular poets of the 19th and 20th centuries are Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, respectively. These women were born nearly one hundred years apart, but their writing is strikingly similar, especially through the use of the speaker. In fact, in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy”, she writes about her father and compares him to domineering figures, such as Adolf Hitler, a teacher, and a vampire; and in Emily Dickinson’s poem “She dealt her pretty words like blades—“, she talks about bullies and how they affect a person’s life—another domineering figure. Despite being born in different centuries, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath are parallel in a multitude of ways, such as their choice in story, their choice for themes, and their choice of and as a narrator.
“A snapshot in time: Feministic views in the sixties”, in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Dorothy Livesay’s “The Unquiet Bed”
Plath and Sexton's lifetimes spanned a period of remarkable change in the social role of women in America, and both are obviously feminist poets caught somewhere between the submissive pasts of their mothers and the liberated futures awaiting their daughters. With few established female poets to emulate, Plath and Sexton broke new ground with their intensely personal, confessional poetry. Their anger and frustration with female subjugation, as well as their agonizing personal struggles and triumphs appear undisguised in their works, but the fact that both Sexton and Plath committed suicide inevitably colors what the reader gleans from their poems. However, although their poems, such as Plath's "Daddy" and Sexton's "Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman," deal with the authors' private experiences, they retain elements of universality; their language cuts through a layer of individual perspective to reach a current of raw emotion common to all human, but especially female, understanding.
From the every begin of the first lines of the poem, the imagery shows that the parents and son are at odds with each other. In the poem, the son is argues that there are 102 gallons of water in his body even though the parents tell him that he has mistaken the words “divide” and “multiply” to come out with a false answer. But, the son insists that he is right about this improbable figure because his teacher said that he was right. The parents argue back by saying do you remember that jug of milk and no way you’re carrying one hundred of those. Even after this the son still doesn’t listen to them. Because of the divide between son and his parents, the son won’t even consider that his parents might be right. The son thinks they are “idiots” without ev...
"Harlem" was written by Langsatn Hughes. This poem is focusing on the American-African neighborhood "Harlem" in New York City in mid-twenties while the society was filling with discriminations and racism. "My Father as A Guitar" was written by Martin Espada. In the poem, the speaker is comparing his father, who has a heart problem, with a guitar. "Charon 's Cosmology" was written by Charles Simic in 1977. This poem is mainly about a ferryman, whose job is to transfer souls of dead. These three poems have different themes, however, the speaker all used some literary devices to express their thoughts to readers.
The absence of a specific rhyme pattern also contributes chaos to the tone. The structure of the poem is abstract, much like the characters thoughts and feelings. The rhymes are all over the place and the rhythm is often broken up with words that make it unbalanced and add tension. Another technique the author uses is lots of repetition. This helps to add emphasis and give a more dramatic effect to certain phrases. “Ich, ich, ich, ich,” (932) adds emphasis to her being unable to speak. At some points the repetition sounds a bit childlike showing her inner child. This is evident when she says “and get back, back, back to you” (933). The repetition along with the abundant use of “--oo” sounds and when the author uses terms like “achoo”, “daddy”, “freakish”, “neat”, and “gobbledygoo,” seems to create a Dr. Seuss effect on the poem. It is apparent the naïve child within her is influencing her thoughts and writings. Then, when the dark metaphors and the negative connotation towards her father are added, the tone is set. The internal conflict becomes apparent between the child who loved her “daddy” and the woman who has learned to see the man for what he truly was, a monster.
Known for her distinctive voice and exploration of dark, violent emotions, Sylvia Plath was one of the most acclaimed poets of the twentieth century. In her poems she discusses many common themes such as family relations, marriage, self-image and death in unique ways. Among these topics, she expresses a particularly original perspective on motherhood and its effect on the individual that often deviates completely from the traditional view of child rearing. In her poems “Moonrise,” “Heavy Woman” and “Morning Song,” Plath conveys the idea that motherhood, although necessary, is a personal as well as physical sacrifice that involves much pain and suffering.
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.
Daddy was written on October 12, 1962 by Sylvia Plath, shortly before her death, and published posthumously in Ariel in 1963. Throughout the poem it could be viewed from a feminist perspective, drawing attention to the misogynistic opinions and behaviours of the time it was written. Misonogy is a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women. It can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women. Plath uses the reversal of gender stereotypes/roles within Daddy, which could be interpreted as an attempt to empower women.
Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings.
It’s been a long debated subject of whether LGBT+ rights were civil rights or not. From being able to be gay and serve in the military, and to simply get the right to get married, it’s still a long road ahead, but the LGBT+ community has fought long and hard for simply rights that straight people already have. Torture, electroshock therapy, basic human rights being ripped away, and the feeling of being safe walking out of the house every day are all things LGBT+ community members have to worry about and have lost.
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.