`` Daddy `` By Sylvia Plath

In Plath’s poem she frequently uses figurative language about Nazis and the Holocaust. Plath depicts herself as a victim by saying she is like a Jew, and her father is like a Nazi. Plath uses a train engine as a metaphor for her father speaking the German Language, and also to depict herself as a victimized Jew being taken away to a concentration camp.

Sylvia Plath uses her poem, Daddy, to express deep emotions toward her father’s life and death. With passionate articulation, she verbally turns over her feelings of rage, abandonment, confusion and grief. Though this work is fraught with ambiguity, a reader can infer Plath’s basic story. Her father was apparently a Nazi soldier killed in World War II while she was young. Her statements about not knowing even remotely where he was while he was in battle, the only photograph she has left of him and how she chose to marry a man that reminded her of him elude to her grief in losing her father and missing his presence. She also expresses a dark anger toward him for his political views and actions

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.

Relationships between fathers and daughters are generally close and trustful. When power and intimidation are present, a deep hatred rises up and nothing is peaceful. In Sylvia Plath's poem “Daddy”, a complicated relationship between a father and daughter is displayed. Plath’s poem describes the strained nature of the relationship between the speaker and her father due to the overpowering personality of her parent. The speaker goes into detail about her affection, yet ever present hatred, for her father. Sylvia Plath uses various examples of figurative language, tone, and diction to showcase the theme of no relationship is truly perfect, there will always be problems that come to the surface.

The poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath concludes with the symbolic scene of the speaker killing her vampire father.  On an obvious level this represents Plath's struggle to deal with the haunting influence of her own father who died when she was a little girl.  However, as Mary G. DeJong points out, "Now that Plath's work is better known, ‘Daddy' is generally recognized as more than a confession of her personal feelings towards her father" (34-35).  In the context of the poem the scene's symbolism becomes ambiguous because mixed in with descriptions of the poet's father are clear references to her husband, who left her for another woman as "Daddy" was being written.  The problem for the

I think that calling her father a Nazi is especially powerful not only because Sylvia Plath’s father was alive during some of the Nazi atrocities as a child, but also because it’s an act of appropriation, to take a nasty part of history and combine it with her poems, she wanted people to feel uneasy about her work.

Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Daddy”, illustrates how confinement and suppression can lead to an unparalleled hatred towards the suppressor, even if the suppressor is one’s own father. Throughout the poem, Plath describes how her suppression is equivalent to the Jews being suppressed by Hitler during World War II. The fact that her father is German does not help the matter, Plath furthers

In Sylvia Plath’s free verse poem, “Daddy,” she describes her hatred towards her deceased father. Plath uses tone, figures of speech, and symbols to illustrate her extreme anger and female protest towards the man that raised her. Sylvia Plath has a dark, bitter tone in “Daddy.” She recalls all the pain that her father has put her through, even after his death.

This poem raises many questions and thoughts regarding the holocaust and beyond the holocaust as well. One obvious question raised by the author revolves around the notion of how would one feel if they lost everything or everyone they have ever known. Throughout the poem Glatstein expresses his overwhelming pain and sadness due to the fact he had lost his entire family and the country he once loved. Although this feeling is specific to Glatstein’s unfortunate experience, people all over the world can encounter times in their lives when they may lose something or someone close to them. An example of this, that is not as horrific or severe as what happened to Glatstein, could be when a student goes off to college in another country, leaving their single mother alone. The mother may feel as though her one love has abandoned her. This example is less extreme than that of Glatstein, but it is a situation that many people may experience.

Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” explores the power imbalance of gender relations and the negative effects of oppression on women in a male-dominated society. The speaker’s portrayal of the patriarchal system as her “daddy” describes the infinite power enforced through hegemony on women and how women are “chuffed up as Jews” into slavery, suppression, and loss of self-identity. The use of children’s discourse with words like “achoo” and “gobbledygoo” portrays the speaker as having a child-like innocence, which ironically proves that young girls lose their innocence when socializing into expected roles of women in marriage and childbearing. The holocaust imagery in “I think I may well be a Jew” allegorically represents the historical victimization of

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

On the other hand, her father died when she was ten and she still saw him as this massive man standing at the blackboard with a cleft chin and a soft heart, but as she grew older, she became more aware of her father’s truth. He was a Nazi who spent his days working to round up Jews and working under Hitler. For the rest of her life, she racked her brain

Plath felt oppressed and stifled by men throughout her life. The first stanza of “Daddy” conveys her feelings of domination by her father:

“Daddy” written by Sylvia Plath an American poet best known for her dark, and confessional poems, and novels. Sylvia Plath lets you understand her thoughts through her writing, for example poems like “Daddy” and her novel The Bell Jar. More and more people learn about her work by reading her poetry or novels today. For one reason, this poem gives many emotions to the reader. By reading “Daddy” you can sense sadness, hopefulness, a broken child, while others may argue it is a cry for help. Secondly, Sylvia Plath casts herself as a victim by sharing all the negative feelings she experienced after her father’s dead. Lastly, Plath expresses how she portraits her father as a powerful figure, especially when Plath refer him as a Nazi, German, Frisco, and vampire. I feel this poem is very powerful because you can feel the writer’s emotions towards her father and including herself worth. In the poem “Daddy” it projects the emotions Sylvia Plath was trying to share with the reader. Poems like these can help other people deal with their negative feelings, by realizing they are not the only ones dealing with negative thoughts, and searching for the help they may need in case of a crisis.