Compare and Contrast of Sylvia Plath and Sharon Olds

In today’s society, family is often attempted to be organized within a social structure. Within this structure family typically is consisted of mom, dad, daughter, and son. However, many families do not fit into this configuration. These families may include same sex couples, separated or divorced families, extended families, or even blended families. Even though these families may be happy and healthy, to many they are not considered real families. Going along with the topic of imperfect families, both Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Rodriguez try to break down the traditional family structure through their writing. While Kingsolver’s “Stone Soup” and Rodriguez’s “Family Values” explore the ideas of different family structures and traditional American values, “Stone Soup” breaks down what an actual family is like while “Family Values” expresses the value of family in different cultures.

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 the poem “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath describes her true feelings about her deceased father. Throughout the dialogue, the reader can find many instances that illustrate a great feeling of hatred toward the author’s father. She begins by expressing her fears of her father and how he treated her. Subsequently she conveys her outlook on the wars being fought in Germany. She continues by explaining her life since her father and how it has related to him.

In 1963 on a cold winter day of February 11th, Sylvia Plath ended her life. She had plugged up her kitchen, sealing up the cracks in doors and windows before she was found with her head inside of her gas oven inhaling the dangerous fumes. She was only thirty years old, a young woman with two small children and an estranged ex-husband. A tragic detail of her life is that this is the second time she had tried to commit suicide. Plagued with mental illness her whole life, which is evident within her poetry. She would write gripping, honest portrayals of mental illnesses. Especially within Ariel, the last poetry book she wrote, right before she took her life. Although it’s hard to find a proper diagnosis for Sylvia Plath, it is almost definite that she at least had clinical depression with her numerous suicide attempts and stays in mental hospitals undergoing electroshock therapy. Sylvia Plath is now famously known for her writing and the more tragic parts of her life. Such as the separation from her husband, Ted Hughes, mental illness, etc… Plath may not have intended for her life and art to become inspiration to many people but that has become the end result. Sylvia Plath writing shows symptoms of her suicidal thoughts. To study specific moments in Sylvia Plath’s life, it can be connected to certain writing’s of her’s, such as “Daddy”, The Bell Jar, and “Lady Lazarus”.

You may begin by commenting on the different definitions available for ideology in general as well as the theory of feminism. Feminism is discussed in this course as an example of modern theories and is often associated with the issue of ideology. Your discussion should refer to the discussion of these terms as well as the major elements connected to them (e.g. gender, écriture feminine, patriarchy, etc.). In your analysis of the poem you may want to ask questions concerning Plath’s personal life and her relationship to male figures in her family. Do you read the poem as a personal or a political poem? Would you characterize Plath as a feminist poet? Always

Although everyone has a father, the relationship that each person has with his or her father is different. Some are close to their fathers, while some are distant; some children adore their fathers, while other children despise them. For example, in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden writes about his regret that he did not show his love for his hardworking father sooner. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” she writes about her hatred for her brute father. Despite both authors writing on the same topic, the two pieces are remarkably different. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” have different themes that are assembled when the authors put their different uses of imagery, tone, and characterization together.

As is inherent within the tradition of confessional poetry, a subgenre of lyric poetry which was most prominent from the fifties to the seventies (Moore), Sylvia Plath uses the events of her own tragic life as the basis of creating a persona in order to examine unusual relationships. An excellent example of this technique is Plath’s poem “Daddy” from 1962, in which she skilfully manipulates both diction, trope and, of course, rhetoric to create a character which, although separate from Plath herself, draws on aspects of her life to illustrate and make points about destructive, interhuman relations. Firstly that of a father and daughter, but later also that of a wife and her unfaithful husband.

The works of Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath convey feelings of sorrow, in attempt to release their emotions and show the reader their true mental struggles. Although these writers were alive at extremely different time periods, they shared characteristics in the way they wrote and the messages emanate in their poems and other writings. However, their works vary from each other as Sylvia often focuses on her depression through pathetic fallacy and nature while Poe focuses on the evil within and the acceptance of death of the people closest to him. Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath similarly dealt with various obstacles in which they wrote about, but the way in which they expressed these issues in their works of literature differed immensely.

Sylvia Plath was influenced to write poems early on in her life. One of the biggest influences within her writing include her father, Otto Plath. Otto Plath had died from an illness caused by diabetes in 1940. After this traumatizing event, Plath had written very vivid poems explaining her problematic relationship with her father, and her feelings after he had died. She wrote a poem named Daddy (“Sylvia Plath” Poetry). Daddy is a poem including a characteristic person representing Plath’s father in real life. Her father in the poem is a dark person that Sylvia Plath has to “kill” (Ardagh, Emily). Plath was very upset about this sudden death of her father, so she thought the perfect idea was to write a poem about him. Another important person

Inspired by their true-life memories, Plath and Sexton explore a variety of themes in their poems. They both have different aspects of the relationship between a father and a daughter. The fathers in Sexton and Plath’s life had a major position and made an influence on their life and in their

Sylvia Plath?s poem "Daddy" describes her feelings of oppression from her childhood and conjures the struggle many women face in a male-dominated society. The conflict of this poem is male authority versus the right of a female to control her own life and be free of male domination. Plath?s conflicts begin with her father and continue into the relationship between her and her husband. This conflict is examined in lines 71-80 of "Daddy" in which Plath compares the damage her father caused to that of her husband.

How Sylvia Plath's Life is Reflected in the Poems Daddy, Morning Song, and Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath’s poetry is well known for its deeply personal and emotional subject matter. Much of Plath’s poetry is confessional and divulges the most intimate parts of her psyche whether through metaphor or openly, without creating a persona through which to project her feelings, and through the use of intense imagery. Plath’s attempt to purge herself of the oppressive male figures in her life is one such deeply personal and fundamental theme in her poetry. In her poem, “Daddy”, which declares her hatred for her father and husband, this attempt is expressed through language, structure, and tone. (Perkins, 591)

Sylvia Plath, a great American author, focuses mostly on actual experiences. Plath’s poetry displays feelings and emotions. Plath had the ability to transform everyday happenings into poems or diary entries. Plath had a passion for poetry and her work was valued. She was inspired by novelists and her own skills. Her poetry was also very important to readers and critics. Sylvia Plath’s work shows change throughout her lifetime, relates to feelings and emotions, and focuses on day to day experiences.

In conclusion a father is a significant figure in a daughter’s life. In which he should influence, encourage, and empower their daughters. In the poem My Father in the Navy, Cofer shows her father positive relationship influences her life. In contrast the poem Daddy, Plath shows disastrous relationship negatively impact her life. Both of these poems examine the convoluting relationship between fathers and