Daddy by sylvia plath Essay

The figurative language in the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath can be used to discover a deeper significant of the poem. By using figurative language throughout the poem such as symbolism, imagery, and wordplay, Plath reveals hidden messages about her relationship with her father. Plath uses symbols of Nazis, vampires, size, and communication to help reveal a message about her dad.

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.

Sylvia Plath was a troubled writer to say the least, not only did she endure the loss of her father a young age but she later on “attempted suicide at her home and was hospitalized, where she underwent psychiatric treatment” for her depression (Dunn). Writing primarily as a poet, she only ever wrote a single novel, The Bell Jar. This fictional autobiography “[chronicles] the circumstances of her mental collapse and subsequent suicide attempt” but from the viewpoint of the fictional protagonist, Esther Greenwood, who suffers the same loss and challenges as Plath (Allen 890). Due to the novel’s strong resemblance to Plath’s own history it was published under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas”. In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath expresses the

Evelyn, dressed in a hibiscus pink dress, moved like her knees were just hinges, wobbling before falling on her mud-stained bottom. With eyes twinkling full of determination, she rolled to her stomach to get up again. Heel-to-toe her feet moved, arms stretched out to the side, face full of concentration. Slowly, with a little wobble, she took her first step. Then she splendidly took another step, and then another step. Before Charlene could realise it, Evelyn just successfully walked her first steps.

The precursors for this therapy type were introduced long before electroconvulsive therapy even entered into the picture. In the early 16th century using medical drugs to induce seizures was thought to be appropriate to treat therapeutic conditions. This was followed with an article in the London Medical Journal in 1785 stating that inducing seizures could be used for therapeutic use. Convulsive therapy would then reappear in 1934 when a neurologist by the name of the Ladislas J. Meduna first began to induce seizures in patients first by using the drug camphor and the following up with the drug metrazol. In 1937 the first international meeting on convulsive therapy was held in Switzerland and 3 years after that cardiazal convulsive therapy would be used worldwide. In 1937 an Italian professor of neuropsychiatry be the name of Ugo Cerletti with his colleague Lucio Bini would be the first people to replace metrazol with electricity in the convulsive therapy. The reasons that he choose to replace metrazol with electricity in the therapy was based on previous experiments he had conducted on inducing seizures in animals using electroshock. Previous experiments that he had done with animals included noticing that in dogs giving them an electric shock to the head would result in convulsions. Another

The 1950s were a time of conformity in the United States, especially for women, who were expected to stay in the domestic sphere of childbearing and housecleaning. Yet, for some younger women, the idea of domesticity and of having their desires coming second to their husbands was not an idea they could get behind. At the age of twenty, Sylvia Plath was one of these women: she had achieved straight A’s throughout her life, was an honors student on the verge of graduation, and had won a once-in-a-lifetime internship in New York. Yet, the only concern her mother and her friends had for her was that she got married as soon as possible. Sylvia soon felt increasingly trapped in a society that expected her to “flatten underneath [her husband’s] feet

Fascism is a rule of an oppressive government, limiting the freedom and rights of its people. Throughout her poem, “Daddy,” Plath alludes that her father and husband were similar tyrannical figures that tried to dominate her in almost every aspect of her life. Using the “victim card,” Plath’s metaphorical examples, such as being compared to a “Jew” from Nazi Germany, enable her to paint a picture of how she played the prey under an authoritarian rule. Silvia Plath’s line: “Every woman adores a Fascist” (48), is an extremely sarcastic remark used to mock the idea of man being able to control and dominate a woman’s life.

To me this poem hits home. This is very common in many South Asian communities, where women are taught to keep quiet and have no opinion. This is where my study on women gender studies emerges. Patriarchy is the common ideology binding many South Asian families (Banerjee 2000). Which also leads to women being taught to be quiet and accepting of violence that comes there way from significant others; as speaking up on intimate partner violence is considered taboo and a personal matter. This leads to long-term victimization as many women refuse to call the police and get help. In addition to this however, it is important to consider immigrant women who are more vulnerable and unable to afford to leave hostile circumstances. This is could be due

The poem describes how Plath comes to terms with the relationship she and her deceased father had when she was eight. She also often describes herself to the readers as a

Sylvia Plath was a gifted writer, poet and verbal artist whose personal anguish and torment visibly manifested itself in her work. Much of her angst stems from her warped relationship with her father. Other factors that influenced her works were her strained views of human sexuality, her sado-masochistic tendencies, self-hatred and her traditional upbringing. She was labeled as a confessional poet and biographical and historical material is absolutely necessary to understand her work.

Daddy by Sylvia Plath is a confessional poem about a daughter's hatred and anger because she felt oppressed by her father for thirty years. Confessional poetry focuses on the inner expressions of conflict and emotion through the use of detail in the poet's life. Plath was nine when her father passed away and she was too young to get to know her father. Her father passed away because of a wound he received on his toe and since he was diabetic the wound eventually got infected and killed him. The young daughter prays for her father in the hopes of getting him back, however when he passes away she feels angered that her daddy is gone.

Imagine growing up with a father so cruel, he haunts you far beyond his death. Well, in the poem "Daddy", this nightmare is a reality. The speaker of the poem is nearly 30 years old before she can finally put her demons to rest. Her father has left her in ruins, unable to maintain a healthy mind or a stable life. Sylvia Plath paints this vivid picture of this nightmare using a number of allusions. While Plath begins the poem with childish, innocent allusions, she soon switches to horrid references of the Holocaust and demons to depict the evil of the speaker 's father.

“You do not do, you do not do, anymore, black shoe in which I have lived like a foot for thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breath or achoo.” This is the first stanza of “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath, and delivers the precise amount of bizarre yet relevant images that entice interest. It would be a disgrace to stop analyzing there; nevertheless, there is more revealed throughout this dramatic, sorrowful, and torturous account of a girl’s aversion toward her father. The following paragraphs will discuss the poem at length, covering various elements such as narrative voice, imagery, rhythm, and psychological effect. Plath’s use of each element designs a disturbing glance into the mind of a woman who understood hatred and described it powerfully.

Most girls look for a man like their father or brothers. This is usually because they have known them to provide security and stability, but occasionally the child develops an Electra Complex. This is a girl’s unconscious, psychosexual competition with her mother for possession of her father, while also knowing she needs her mother as well. This comes into play in Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy,” when the speaker paints a wicked impression of her father, yet is infatuated enough to marry a man who she has made to model her father. The speaker spends her whole youth looking up to her father only to be robbed of her Electra Complex by the truth of her father’s conduct.