Candidate Number: GDYL5 Total Amount Of Words: 1813 ELCS6070 – The Poet In Society 1. Comparison of Sylvia Plath’s Morning Song and David Bowie’s Cooks Parenthood is a recurring theme used in poetry along time, with different views on it depending on the time it was presented or the personal situation the poet has when describing his feelings about it. In this essay I will compare Sylvia Plath’s Morning Song and David Bowie’s Cooks, trying to expose the two very different views about parenthood these pieces present, and situating them in the personal context of the author so some light can be brought to why each of them presents parenthood in such a different way. Sylvia Plath had always been a troubled …show more content…
The song seems to be a petition from the parents to the child to accept them just as they are, which is quite peculiar since one would expect the conversation to go the other way around. The chorus says ‘Will you stay in our lovers’ story’ , but it is unlikely to be asking one’s child to stay, since they are supposed to flee and live their own life. It doesn’t seem, though, to be asking for the child to physically stay with them, but rather to accept them as they are. The song is called Kooks, and it presents the parents as a couple of strange people which will seem quite different from the rest of parents, but still are going to love their children and take the best care of him they can. In exchange they promise to love him back and put his needs before anything else. It seems like a warning made to their children out of love. They are telling him they are going to love him and support him the best that they can, but they have limitations and the child is going to have to get used to them. The lines ‘Don’t pick fights with the bullies or the cads / ‘cause I’m not much cop at punching other peoples dads’ seems to be giving some words of caution, saying that if he picks up fights they can’t protect him, instead of giving the cliché advise of “don’t fight, discuss”, which seems to be the ‘right thing to tell your child’. It doesn’t sound like a piece of advice so their child …show more content…
They both present the feelings of a parent towards his child, and they both talk about the problems parenthood presents. Morning Song focuses in the emotions of the mother and her relation to her new-born daughter, and how difficult those first months are being for her, in addition to the feeling of distance towards her child she seems to feel since the day she was born. Kooks on the other hand focuses more on the child and talks about the life the child has ahead, warning him about the difficulties he might encounter due to being born on a pretty strange family. Plath’s work seems to be more focused on the parent and what parenthood means for her, how it makes her feel and what it has signified for her. She doesn’t seem to be very concerned about the daughter herself, what the future might lay ahead for her or what it is going to be for her in the future. The main focus of the poem is not that, but rather how she is going to manage motherhood and how she is doing so far; the cries of the baby, the separation of her infant from her body and the feeling that she doesn’t belong to her anymore. There seems to be no concern whatsoever about the future of the baby, almost like if Sylvia Plath would know that she wouldn’t be there to see her daughter grew, since she would commit suicide only three years after the birth of her child, in 1963 . Kooks focus is on the child, warning
Stanza two shows us how the baby is well looked after, yet is lacking the affection that small children need. The child experiences a ‘vague passing spasm of loss.’ The mother blocks out her child’s cries. There is a lack of contact and warmth between the pair.
The author uses imagery in the poem to make the experience of this one woman stand out vividly. The first lines of the poem say "she saw diapers steaming on the line / a doll slumped behind the door." The phrase "steaming on the line" is especially strong, making me able to feel the balmy heat of the day and the bright warm sunshine on my skin. Also, the diapers and doll may serve as symbols in this poem for all the cares that the woman carries in looking after her children. Right now she wants to put all that behind her, and doesn't want any reminders of it. She wants to escape into a place where there are no demands.
Gwendolyn Brooks' poem "The mother" tells us about a mother who had many abortions. The speaker is addressing her children in explain to them why child could not have them. The internal conflict reveals that she regret killing her children or "small pups with a little or with no hair." The speaker tells what she will never do with her children that she killed. She will "never neglect", "beat", "silence", "buy with sweet", " scuffle off ghosts that come", "controlling your luscious sigh/ return for a snack", never hear them "giggled", "planned", and "cried." She also wishes she could see their "marriage", "aches", "stilted", play "games", and "deaths." She regrets even not giving them a "name" and "breaths." The mother knows that her decision will not let her forget by using the phrase "Abortions will not let you forget." The external conflict lets us know that she did not acted alone in her decision making. She mentions "believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate" and "whine that the crime was other than mine." The speaker is saying that her decision to have an abortion was not final yet but someone forced her into having it anyway. The external conflict is that she cannot forget the pain on the day of having the abortions. She mentions the "contracted" and "eased" that she felt having abortions.
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
A father can play many roles throughout a child’s life: a caregiver, friend, supporter, coach, protector, provider, companion, and so much more. In many situations, a father takes part in a very active position when it comes to being a positive role model who contributes to the overall well-being of the child. Such is the case for the father in the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. In this poem, readers are shown the discreet ways in which a father can love his child. On the other hand, there are also many unfortunate situations where the fathers of children are absent, or fail to treat the children with the love and respect that they undoubtedly deserve. In the contrasting poem “Like Riding a Bicycle” by George Bilgere, readers are shown how a son who was mistreated by his drunken father is affected by their past relationship many years later. Although both of these poems have fairly similar themes and literary techniques, they each focus on contradicting situations based on the various roles a father can play in a child’s life.
Plath wrote many poems about motherhood. The poem you’re is about a baby in the mothers womb. She encounters many ‘for’s’ and ‘against’ about her unborn child. She uses many striking similes and metaphors. The poem is like a riddle, she never says the baby is unborn she just gives lots of hints. Plath’s positive and negative feelings about pregnancy are shown in the following quotes. A negative feeling, ‘gilled like a fish’ this shows that the baby can breathe in the mothers womb but if you think deeper it shows that the baby is a alien to the human race. A positive feeling is ‘jumpy as a Mexican bean’ this shows that the baby is joyful and full of energy.
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). 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. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
A maternal life entails that a mother is to wholefully provide the necessary emotional, physical, and spirtual support for the proper development of her children. The combination of support systems provided to a child by the mother can lead to a strenous life style resulting in either a negative pyschological or physiolological state on the part of the maternal care giver that, overtime, will enable the child bearer to develop a sense of ambivalence towards the notion of motherhood. In the case of Rita Dove’s poem Daystar and Gwen Harwood’s poem In the park, the ideals of motherhood are blurred producing a negative view of a maternity. In spite of the fact that both poem’s look at the theme of motherhood as a painstaking responsibility
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.
In a typical family, there are parents that expected to hear things when their teenager is rebelling against them: slamming the door, shouting at each other, and protests on what they could do or what they should not do. Their little baby is growing up, testing their wings of adulthood; they are not the small child that wanted their mommy to read a book to them or to kiss their hurts away and most probably, they are thinking that anything that their parents told them are certainly could not be right. The poem talks about a conflict between the author and her son when he was in his adolescence. In the first stanza, a misunderstanding about a math problem turns into a family argument that shows the classic rift between the generation of the parent and the teenager. Despite the misunderstandings between the parent and child, there is a loving bond between them. The imagery, contrasting tones, connotative diction, and symbolism in the poem reflect these two sides of the relationship.
In the poem, “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath shows her character to have a love for her father as well as an obvious sense of resentment and anger towards him. She sets the tone through the structure of the poem along with her use of certain diction, imagery, and metaphors/similes. The author, Sylvia Plath, chooses words that demonstrate the characters hatred and bitterness towards the oppression she is living with under the control of her father and later, her husband. Plath’s word choice includes many words that a child might use. There is also an integration of German words which help set the tone as well. She creates imagery through her use of metaphors and similes which allow the reader to connect certain ideas and convey the dark, depressing tone of the poem.
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.
Sylvia wrote “Daddy” in 1963 about a girl’s emotional struggle with her German father who died and was like a monster. This father represents Sylvia’s own father who died when she was young. She wants to destroy him but he cannot come back to life. His death has caused Sylvia to have problems with all the men in her future including her former husband Ted, who she also refers to in the poem. This is the first type of literary criticism that stands out, feminist ...
The poetry of Sylvia Plath can be interpreted psychoanalytically. Sigmund Freud believed that the majority of all art was a controlled expression of the unconscious. However, this does not mean that the creation of art is effortless; on the contrary it requires a high degree of sophistication. Works of art like dreams have both a manifest content (what is on the surface) and latent content (the true meaning). Both dreams and art use symbolism and metaphor and thus need to be interpreted to understand the latent content. It is important to maintain that analyzing Plaths poetry is not the same as analyzing Plath; her works stand by themselves and create their own fictional world. In the poems Lady Lazarus, Daddy and Electra on Azalea Path the psychoanalytic motifs of sadomasochism, regression and oral fixation, reperesnet the desire to return to the incestuous love object.