In “Daddy,” By Sylvia Plath, she expresses her character to have a feeling of love for her father, as well as an obvious sense of hatred and rage towards him. She sets that tone through out the structure of the poem. The poet Sylvia Plath chooses many specific words that demonstrate the characters hatred and hostility towards the men she is living with. In Plath’s “Daddy”, the writer reveals the essential truth of her family relationship, from the control of her father and later in her life her husband. Plath use of certain wordings, metaphors, imagery, repetitions and similes, demonstrated throughout the poem, were phrases worded in a child like manner. There were also many uses of German words, which really help to additionally set the tone of her wishy-washy family relationship. Her figurative language allows for the reader to build connections through what is being conveyed throughout this shady, gloomy family relationship poem.
The poem primarily starts, with a weird rhyming cadence form that gives the reader the idea of disorder and or confusion. The structure of the poem is strange, much like the poet’s thoughts and feelings. The author also uses a great deal of repetition. Her use of repetition helps to add importance and give a more of a dramatic effect to
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certain expressions. For example, Plath’s use of “Ich, ich, ich, ich,” (line 27) shows her being unable to speak. Also, at some points some repetition phrases were worded in a child like idea. Made quite obvious when she says “...and get back, back, back to you” (line 58-59). This line depicted her as a confused wishy-washy child that wanted to go threw great lengths to rejoin someone she barely knows. Making it obvious the child within her is influencing her thoughts and writings threw out the writing. Later, when the dark metaphors and the bad implications towards her father are added; the family relationship becomes established as wishy-washy. The relationship conflict becomes more apparent between the child who loved her “daddy” and then the woman who has grown to see him for what he truly is to her. In the poem the woman has a picture of her father and describes him as “standing at the blackboard” with “a cleft in his chin” (line 51-53). Her description of him gives a feeling of him being a good man. Standing next to a blackboard indicates he was an educator and educators are highly regarded and respected. Also, cleft chins are generally depicted as being on strong good guy individuals or more commonly superheroes. Carrying that picture around with her shows that there is a side of her that wants to remember her father as a good guy, giving the reader the idea that she may not have a clear reason as to why she hates her father. Plus, she uses a lot of metaphor to relate her father to Nazis.
She begins by stating, “I have always been scared of you with your Luftwaffe...”(line 41-42), which was Germanys aerial attack unit in WWII. The strongest Ariel unit in the world at the time helped to pronounce her fear of him. The use of German, and WWII language gives the poem an realistic feeling of the time period. Additionally, adding to the helpfulness of delivering her message. Despite the power her father had over her, the girl shows a wishy-washy love towards her father. Indicated when she states, “I used to pray to recover you” (line 14) showing that the short time she had with him maybe wasn't enough to hate him for so
long. It is made to believe her current experiences with her husband, is what shaped her views of her dad. In the poem, Plath states, “I made a model of you” (line 64). Intending that the man she married is just like her father. But in actuality, never having a father or father figure in her life after the age of eight. Possibly affected her in not knowing how a man should treat a woman, and she shows evidence of that threw her bad marriage decision. Giving the reader the idea that her current hatful memories of her husband, is what is influencing the hatred she feels towards her father and most likely all men in general. Throughout the poem the writer expresses a wishy-washy love hate relationship towards her father. Then ends with “There’s a stake in your fat black heart”(Line 76), then makes a reference of the villagers dancing and stomping on her fathers grave. Demonstrating that she is ultimately cloaking her family relationship conflict. By doing so she may have thought she freed herself from the grasp her “daddy” had on her life.
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.
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.
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.
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
Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.
In Plath's "Daddy," written just before her death and published posthumously, the most readily accessible emotion is anger, and much of the poem is couched in autobiographical allusions. Plath's own father died of a gangrenous infection, caused by diabetes he refused to treat, when Plath was eight years old, and his death was "the crucial event of her childhood" (Baym 2743). Plath makes personal references to her father as a...
To begin, the sound of this poem can be proven to strongly contribute an effect to the message of this piece. This poem contains a traditional meter. All of the lines in the poem except for lines nine and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of eight syllables. This is relevant in order for the force of the poem to operate dynamically. The poem is speaking in a tenor of veiled confessions. For so long, the narrator is finally speaking up, in honesty, and not holding back. Yet, though what has been hidden is ultimately coming out, there is still this mask, a façade that is being worn. In sequence, the last words in each of the lines, again, except for lines nine and 15, are all in rhythm, “lies, eyes, guile, smile, subtleties, over-wise, sighs, cries, arise, vile...
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. Plath uses the reversal of gender stereotypes/roles within Daddy, which could be interpreted as an attempt to empower women.
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.
I suspect that Plath had a great deal of anger surrounding her fathers death, perhaps for leaving her so early. Yet at the same time, she expresses an anger for the life her father led while he was living, implicating some sence of insest in their relationship. Plath wrote another poem about her father entitled 'Daddy' in which among other things, Plath calls her father a bastard.
Death is inevitable and a lifelong process in every individual’s life. Most importantly, we are unaware of when or how it will happen and, because death can come at a time when we least expect it, it allows some individuals to fear death. In both poems, Lady Lazarus and Daddy, by Sylvia Plath, show different ways to view death. In Lady Lazarus, Plath talks about the characters attempts to commit suicide. Throughout the poem, we discover that the first time she tried to commit suicide was an accident while her second and third time were intentional. While Daddy reveals the process of how a girl came to terms with her father’s death. Although some may assert that the poems show rebirth, both poems reveal death as a way to escape from reality.
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.
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 :