Daddy by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath=s Confessional Poem, ADaddy@ Sylvia Plath reveals herself in her confessional poem ADaddy@. She uses strong imagery and powerful speech to show her attitudes towards her late father, Otto Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, who also hurt her in the end. Her tone implies a strong hatred and disgust for the relationships with both men. The poem was written in 1963 which happened to be the same year that she committed suicide. Plath had a history of troubled times and attempted suicide. Plath describes her relationship and feelings of guilt, fear, and pain her father=s death caused her. Plath used imagery heavily in her poem to show her emotions. She casts her father into different parts throughout the poem. Plath=s images of her father are compared to God, a Nazi, the Devil, and a vampire. All of these images are powerful on their own but by being put together they are almighty and frightening. In the beginning the speaker=s childhood memories of her father are *God-like= to her. Her father wasn=t God, but just Aa bag of God@(8). He must have been very powerful and impressive to her. She continues to describe her father as a AGhastly statue with one gray toe@ (9), showing that her father was overwhelming and as
Then Plath goes on to describe her father as a Nazi and places herself in the role of the Jew. Maybe it was an attempt to bring her father back or maybe it was something she did to try to cope with the unfinished feelings she had dealing with his early death. In this monologue of a woman to her *Daddy=, Plath addresses issues of abandonment and pain that her father and husband caused her. Stylistic devices play an important role in showing the many complicated aspects of Plath=s attitude towards men. The supposed characteristic of a devil=s cleft hove is possessed by the father but not in his foot. As a monster alive but dead at the same time. Plath uses a comparison between her father and the devil to emphasis her attitudes toward him. She felt tired of dealing with her abandonment issues and was ready to get rid of the controlling memory of her deceased father. She married a man that reminded her of her father, only to be hurt again. She uses the metaphor of the vampire to describe her father and husband. In the beginning of the second half of ADaddy,@ it is hard to pinpoint which man she is referring to. Thought Plath is convinced that it does not make her father any less of a devil. This was a symbolic realtionship of oppressor and oppressed. Plath uses contrasting imagery with the references to swastika and the idea of a Jew, which the Star of David is the first image to appear in the mind=s eye. The first 8 stanzas can be easily related to her father and the last eight stanzas one can she the husband being introduced.
Common topics in this essay:
Ted Hughes,
God Aa,
Devil AA,
AIf I=ve,
Star David,
Otto Plath,
Nazi Devil,
Sylvia Plath,
,
memory father,
describe father,
father husband,
father devil,
ted hughes,
confessional poem adaddy@,
attempted suicide,
otto plath,
father maybe,
suicide plath,
plath imagery,
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Acceptance Essays
