Zonnebeke Road By Sylvia Plath

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Recommended: War poetry analysis

A close analysis of "Daddy" and "Zonnebeke Road."

The two poems I have chosen to analyse are "Zonnebeke Road" by Edmund Blunden and "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. I chose these two poems for the simple reasons that they both moved me when I read them and the fact that they are both about very deep and almost disturbing personal experiences.

"Zonnebeke Road" takes us through the thoughts, mood and gloomy surroundings of a soldier in the front line trenches on Zonnebeke Road in Belgium. Zonnebeke Road was an area of heavy fighting during the First World War where masses of soldiers were killed. This poem encapsulates the savageness and brutality of war with the use of an almost sarcastic tone, chilling imagery and the personification of nature. …show more content…

This emulates Sylvia's state of mind at the time of writing this poem; she has mixed emotions towards her father that she cannot put down in any sort of chronological order. Sylvia Plath uses harsh, guttural sounds to emphasise the military role she sees her father played in her life.

"It stuck in a barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak."

The use of the German language is another indication of how Sylvia Plath imagines her father in the role of a German Nazi soldier.

The word "you" used over and over almost like a chant really emphasises how she feels about her father and how he played a large role in her life when he was alive and also now that he is dead. The chant like repartition of "you" also reflects the style in which German military rules are enforced.

"You do not do, you do not do"

There is a wide range of images created throughout the poem of Sylvia Plath's father and one also of her husband. She refers to her father as different figures of hatred and immorality such as the Nazi soldier (as I have mentioned before), the devil and a vampire. She also likens her husband to a

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