Hatred and Disgust in Sylvia Plath's Daddy Plath Daddy Essays

Expressing Hatred and Disgust in Daddy

Word Count includes Poem Sylvia Plath, author of the confessional poem "Daddy," uses many stylistic devices in the poem to develop a negative attitude towards men, namely her adulterous husband and absent father. "Daddy" uses metaphor, diction, allusion, irony, and imagery to produce a tone of hatred and disgust at her relationships with both men. In lines 71-80, Plath's imagery brings closure to both the poem and any desire for the continuity of either relationship.

Plath uses the image of a vampire to represent her husband and her father. Words and phrases such as "a stake in your fat black heart," "drank my blood for a year," and "the vampire that said he was you" show that Plath thought of these two men as monsters. Plath also says, "If I've killed one man, I've killed two---" which is ironic because she has chosen as a husband someone similiar to the father she hates. These last ten lines bring an end to a poem filled with anguish. "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" reveals that Plath's apostrophe (talking to her dead father) is meant to finally let rest the feelings that have tortured her for years.

Plath uses metaphor and hyperbole to illustate the vast part of her life occupied by her father. "... a bag full of God" is used as a metaphor for her father, who, when she was a little girl, was the center of Plath's world. This is also illustrated in lines 9-11: "Ghastly statue with one gray toe/ Big as a Frisco seal / And a head in the freakish Atlantic." Plath felt that her father was so imposing and huge that he stretched from the Atlantic to San Fransico. The primary man in her life being her father, Sylvia felt that all men were superior to her no matter what, and that she would always be subordinate.

"Daddy" is filled with allusions to Hitler and Nazi Germany. "Barb wire snare," "Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen," "German tongue," "Luftwaffe," and "Neat mustache/ And your Aryan eye, bright blue" all show that Plath imagines her father as a Nazi extremely controlling, evil, and unfeeling. Plath uses biting sarcasm to illustrate her dislike: "Every woman adores a Facist."

Plath also uses a comparison between her father and the devil to develop the attitude that men are evil: "A cleft in your chin instead of your foot/ But no less a Devil for that." Cleft hooves, a supposed characteristic of the devil, is possesed by her father, but on his chin.

By using many stylistic devices, Plath is successful in creating a tone of hatred, disgust, and finality. Relationships with men were not her strong point by any means, and Plath's negative attitude towards men is clear.

Daddy

1 You do not do, you do not do
2 Any more, black shoe
3 In which I have lived like a foot
4 For thirty years, poor and white,
5 Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

6 Daddy, I have had to kill you.
7 You died before I had time
8 Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
9 Ghastly statue with one gray toe
10 Big as a Frisco seal

11 And a head in the freakish Atlantic
12 Where it pours bean green over blue
13 In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
14 I used to pray to recover you.
15 Ach, du.
16 In the German tongue, in the Polish town
17 Scraped flat by the roller
18 Of wars, wars, wars.
19 But the name of the town is common.
20 My Polack friend

21 Says there are a dozen or two.
22 So I never could tell where you
23 Put your foot, your root,
24 I could never talk to you.
25 The tongue stuck in my jaw.

26 It stuck in a barb wire snare.
27 Ich, ich, ich, ich,
28 I could hardly speak.
29 I thought every German was you.
30 And the language obscene

31 An engine, an engine
32 Chuffing me off like a Jew.
33 A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
34 I began to talk like a Jew.
35 I think I may well be a Jew.

36 The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
37 Are not very pure or true.
38 With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
39 And my Taroc pack and my taroc pack
40 I may be a bit of a Jew.

41 I have always been scared of you,
42 With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
43 And your neat mustache
44 And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
45 Panzer-man, panzer-man, O you

46 Not God but a swastika
47 So black no sky could squeak through.
48 Every woman adores a Fascist,
49 The boot in the face, the brute
50 Brute heart of a brute like you.

51 You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
52 In the picture I have of you,
53 A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
54 But no less a devil for that, no not
55 Any less the black man who

56 Bit my pretty red heart in two.
57 I was ten when they buried you.
58 At twenty I tried to die
59 And get back, back, back to you
60 I thought even the bones would do.

61 But they pulled me out of the sack,
62 And they stuck me back together with glue.
63 And then I knew what to do.
64 I made a model of you,
65 A man in black with a Meinkampf look
66 And a love of the rack and the screw.
67 And I said I do, I do.
68 So daddy, I'm finally through.
69 The black telephone's off at the root,
70 The voices just can't worm through.

71 If I've killed one man, I've killed two
72 The vampire who said he was you
73 And drank my blood for a year,
74 Seven years, if you want to know.
75 Daddy, you can lie back now.

76 There's a stake in your fat black heart
77 And the villagers never liked you.
78 They are dancing and stamping on you.
79 They always knew it was you.
80 Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

12 October 1962
(#183)