Sylvia Plath's Poem Daddy

Sylvia Plath's Poem "Daddy"

Overbearing fathers who dominant their children’s lives dispose of comfort and security and instead cause irreversible damage. Sylvia Plath writes about her own experiences dealing with her authoritarian father in “Daddy.” In this poem, Plath utilizes literary devices like allusion, child-like diction, and dualistic organization to communicate her bitterness in this theme of resentment and scorn.

Plath’s usage of allusion calls the reader to bring their own knowledge to the poem. She uses this device so that the reader can recall information without Plath needing to fully state the scenario. One of the first allusions which Plath uses is in the first stanza when she writes “black shoe in which I have lived like a foot.” She alludes to the nursery rhyme of the old woman who lived in a shoe. In the end of the nursery rhyme, the old woman “whips [her children] all soundly and sends them to bed,” comparing to Plath’s own experience with an emotionally distant father. She communicates his preoccupation with discipline and neglect of care and supp...