Oral Experience: Sylvia Plath's Daddy

1256 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Struggles of Sylvia Plath in the poem daddy

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” creates a unique oral experience through its emphasis on the inconsistent forms and repeated sounds, both of which appeal to the ear and are less visible in the written format. The oral experience differs from the visual experience of reading the poem because the oral experience uses word flow and the sounds of the words to add to the meaning of the poem. Specifically, enjambments between lines and stanzas as well as inconsistent rhyme schemes and syllable counts create a conversational flow and interrupt the unified structure of five lines to a verse. The effect of this break in unity is distinctly oral, and the auditory aspects of this poem reinforce the intensity of the speaker’s feelings of hatred and abandonment. Repeated sounds, such as harsh German words and the “-oo” sound, particularly “Jew” and “you”, also inform the oral experience and serve to reinforce the speaker’s feelings of homelessness and child-like rage towards the father. Ultimately, the oral experience of “Daddy,” which is conveyed through inconsistent forms and repeated sounds, reinforces the intensity of the speaker’s emotions, particularly her hatred, abandonment, homelessness and rage.

There is a considerable difference between the written structure and the spoken structure of the “Daddy.” While the written structure appears to be organized into sixteen distinct five-line stanzas, the auditory version of the poem uses enjambment to change the formatting of the poem into something more expressive and emotional. Through enjambment between lines and stanzas, the oral experience of the poem relies less on the meanings of individual lines and more on the flow of the entire poem. This flow is conversational in nature and is ...

... middle of paper ...

...gh the oral experience of “Daddy,” the author’s anger towards her father can be seen in her repetition and juxtaposition of “I” and “you.”

The poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath uses uneven structure and repeated sounds to create an oral experience that informs the reader of the author’s emotions, specifically anger, isolation, homelessness and rage. The uneven structure and repeated sounds are distinctly oral characteristics that are not as prevalent in the written version in the poem, as they appeal to the ear more than the eye. For this reason, the oral experience adds to the reader’s understanding of the poem. Although the written version of the poem offers many clues to its interpretation, the oral experience of “Daddy” offers a unique perspective on the form and sound structure of the poem.

Works Cited

Plath, Sylvia. Ariel. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of Poems by Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    While most of us think back to memories of our childhood and our relationships with our parents, we all have what he would call defining moments in our views of motherhood or fatherhood. It is clearly evident that both Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have much to say about the roles of fathers in their two poems as well. While the relationships with their fathers differ somewhat, both men are thinking back to a defining moment in their childhood and remembering it with a poem. "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays" both give the reader a snapshot view of one defining moment in their childhood, and these moments speak about the way these children view their fathers. Told now years later, they understand even more about these moments.

    Read More

  • Literary Techniques In Li-Young Lee

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem, A Story, is written in the third person point of view. Thereby, allowing the audience to grasp onto the sentimental emotions of the father. The story begins with the depiction of the father as a “sad...man who is asked

    Read More

  • A Literary Analysis Of 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Father and Child in Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad by Jan Heller Levi and In the Well by Andrew Hudgins

    1572 Words  | 4 Pages

    The simultaneous distance and closeness within the relationship between the father and the child are inevitable even in the most tragic and happy events in life. The poems “Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad” by Jan Heller Levi and “In the Well” by Andrew Hudgins are both about the closeness and distance in a father and child relationship. Both poems are written in first person, or in the child’s point of view to emphasize the thoughts of distance and the experience of childhood thinking to the readers. The poems both use similar literary devices such as motifs and imagery to illustrate and accentuate the ideas of each event that the narrator, a child, experiences. Similarities between both poems are the use of water as a motif of the barrier to being farther away from the father, and the use of different synonyms for the word, father, to indicate the amount of distance at each point in the poems. On the other hand, each poem takes its route of distance in completely opposite directions. “Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad” by Jan Heller Levi and “In the Well” by Andrew Hudgins accommodate the similarities for the use of the same motif, water, and the use of several synonyms for “dad” throughout the poems, but also differentiate because they proceed in opposite directions from the beginning to the end.

    Read More

  • Complex Relationships In 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee

    546 Words  | 2 Pages

    The layers and complications of a relationship can be told through many types of literary devices. In the poem “A Story” by Li-Young Lee, the poet conveys a complex relationship between father and son using point of view and also structure. While the point of view is a third person, the narrator is speaking the father’s thoughts. There is a story in his thoughts that when analyzed show the conflict between the father and the son. The last two lines of the last stanza explain that conflict through the narrator’s eyes which in this case could also be the reader’s eyes since the reader would have come to the same conclusion or reasoning.

    Read More

  • An Explication of Sylvia Plath8217s 8220Daddy8221

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    It tends to be the trend for women who have had traumatic childhoods to be attracted to men who epitomize their emptiness felt as children. Women who have had unaffectionate or absent fathers, adulterous husbands or boyfriends, or relatives who molested them seem to become involved in relationships with men who, instead of being the opposite of the “monsters” in their lives, are the exact replicas of these ugly men. Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” is a perfect example of this unfortunate trend. In this poem, she speaks directly to her dead father and her husband who has been cheating on her, as the poem so indicates.

    Read More

  • Sylvia Plath Comparison Analysis

    764 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Courage’s Attempt to Take Her Life back in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”

    1990 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sylvia Plath a highly acclaimed twentieth century American poet whose writings were mostly influenced by her life experiences. Her father died shortly after her eighth birthday and her first documented attempt at suicide was in her early twenties. She was married at age twenty-three and when she discovered her husband was having an affair she left him with their two children. Her depression and the abandonment she felt as a child and as a woman is what inspires most of her works. Daddy is a major decision point where Plath decides to overcome her father’s death by telling him she will no longer allow his memory to control her.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Poem Daddy

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Sylvia Plath and Her Poetry

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...lems, such as depression, sadness, overbearing and domineering figures. The themes shared in each poem is also a common similarity, such as the example of numbness. The choice in the speaker of each poem is also important, and also share a similarity between the two poets. The idea that the two women wrote poems that shared stories from their own life is not far-fetched, especially in the case of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”. Of the three poems, I found “Daddy” to be the easiest to understand because of its full sentences and vivid description. Furthermore, since the poets wrote as if the speaker of the poem was themselves, I found that their poems were more emotional and gripping than if they were not. Because of this, I considered their poetry very similar in that the speakers are like-minded emotionally, but the writing style of the poets themselves is different.

    Read More

  • Biography of Sylvia Plath

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plath’s difficulties with narrative prose contrasts between her novelistic dreams and her character. Plath’s passion for classic novelists and her own talent made her realize the fitting narrative prose were densely constructed (Hughes 1). Plath’s poetry goes through constant changes (Smith 2). The bee was a motif that was often used (Smith 3).Jerome Mazzaro considers Plath’s achievements in The Bell Jar to be less gendered. Mazzaro also believes Plath’s novel is a statement of fascination of the midcentury (“The Importance…” 2). Marilyn Yalom wrote in Maternity, Morality, and the Literature of Madness that Plath’s novel about her breakdown and her recovery, The Bell Jar, is a pre-feminist disclosure of the effects of the sexist culture. Yalom’s critical view increased from the feminist and psychoanalytic critic of the 1980s (“The Importance…” 1). Plath’s lyricism ranges from simple but effective to a Hopkinsian ode for her beloved (Magill 2223). Her best ability was turning everyday experiences into diary entries (Magill 2225). Plath’s poems from Ariel reflect her fury and sullenness toward life (Draper 2734).

    Read More

  • Sylvia Plath's Life and How It Influenced Her Poetry

    1847 Words  | 4 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Comparing Feminist Poetry by Plath and Sexton

    1203 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • A Women's Relationship With Men in The Poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Imagery In Poems "Daddy" And "Lady Lazarus" By Sylvia Plath

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    First of all, it should be decided who is the speaker in poem "Daddy". This issue as well as the controversial use of Holocaust imagery by Sylvia Plath may be resolved with quoting here her own words, which explain who the speaker is :

    Read More

More about Oral Experience: Sylvia Plath's Daddy

Open Document