An Explication Of Sylvia Plath's Daddy

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"Daddy", by Sylvia Plath is a poem describing love and hate emotions the speaker has towards her father. The poem gives the reader some background of the relationship with the father and realizes that there was not always a hatred in the relationship. In this confessional poem, the reader learns how Plath feels on her father through her deepest secrets.

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, MA, on October 27, 1932 to the parents of Otto and Aurelia Plath (Sylvia). At a young age, her life took a downfall with the hearing of the passing of her father (Sylvia). Later on, the passing of him lead to the inspiration of her vivid poem “Daddy” (Sylvia). Being a gifted student, Plath won numerous awards as a teen for her writing and editing (Sylvia). Growing up, Sylvia had financial problems resulting in her moving to …show more content…

At the start of stanza one, Plath brings up a shoe and a foot to compare herself (the foot) and her father (the shoe) to describe her hate feeling towards her father. As her father representing the black shoe, she wants to discontinue their relationship for she is like a poor, white, foot entrapped for thirty years and does not dare to “breathe or achoo” (Overview: Daddy). Throughout the poem, Plath seemingly indicates her father as a Nazi and that she is the victim ( a Jew). Combining the elements of imagery, metaphor, and allusion, she uses wordplay to show her father as a replica of a Nazi in lines 43 through 44, “And your neat moustache/ And your Aryan eye, bright blue,” (Overview: Daddy). The neat mustache an allusion to Hitler’s mustache and the blue eyes to the ideal race of the Nazi’s. An example of hyperbole, or exaggeration - the swastika not being just black, but being a bold black, “Not God but a swastika/ So black no sky could squeak through,” (lines 46-47). By using all of these stylist elements, she successfully created a loathing and revulsion

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