Daddy Dearest

The language in the poem Daddy, by Sylvia Plath, reveals the author’s struggle to escape the memory of her father, who died when she was only ten years old. The author’s descriptions of her father compared him to God, a Nazi, the Devil, and a vampire. All of these images are overwhelming on their own, but when put together they are colossal and upsetting. Throughout this poem, Sylvia Plath creates a mounting tone of disgust and animosity aimed at her dominating father. This tone is demonstrated through Plath’s use of metaphors and stylistic devices such as dialect and punctuation to describe her father.

In order to get her point across, the author casts her father in different roles throughout the poem. In the beginning, the speaker’s childhood memories of her father are God-like. Her father wasn’t God, but just “a bag full of God” (504). While growing up, she must have seen her father as a very impressive and powerful man. The author goes on to depict her father as a “Ghastly statue with one gray toe” (504), showing that her father was an overwhelming force. The author most likely viewed her father as an unattainable man as well, since he died while she was still a young child.

The narrator’s feelings of abandonment an

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The author also compares her father to the devil, to substantiate her belief that all the men in here life are heartless. The author realizes that her estranged husband is actually the vampire of her dead father, who was sent to torture her. By portraying a German-Jew relationship within the poem, the narrator is able to express her feelings of bitterness and apprehension toward her father. / I think I may well be a Jew” (505). “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through,” reveals that Plath’s quotation marks used when talking to her dead father are meant to finally lay to rest the feelings that have tortured her for years. ” The use of quotation marks throughout the poem not only gives the speaker an illusion of power, it also offers the poem even more of a punch. This can be seen in the narrator’s constant use of the word “Daddy. Moreover, the narrator uses sarcasm to further demonstrate her hatred: “Every woman adores a Fascist” (505). This sentiment is made abundantly clear through examples that cannot be ignored. Sylvia Plath’s word choice allows the reader to picture a woman who frequently slips in and out of a childlike dialect. In the end, the tone helps the reader gain a deeper understanding for the meaning of this literary masterpiece. This metaphor is shown in the fifteenth stanza of the poem when the author exclaims, “I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two-/ The vampire who said he was you” (506). “Daddy, daddy, you bastard,” definitely has a greater impact when compared to “Daddy was a bastard. ” She also repeats lines like “You do not do, you do not do” (504) and “Daddy, daddy, you bastard” (506).

Sylvia Plath creatively intertwines imagery and metaphors with stylistic devices to convey a woman’s disturbing past.

Approximate Word count = 826
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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