Themes And Imagery In Sylvia Plath's 'Parenthood'

As we get older we tend to reflect more on our life and get our priorities together. We tend to realize who and what is important, the people who mean the most to us and the ones we can’t live without. Who would those significant individuals be for us? For most people it would be their parents. In the poems “My Father’s Song” by Simon J. Ortiz, and “My Mother” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, both writers express their emotion towards a parent. The poems are similar in many ways simply because they share a parent child relationship, they are also vastly different. “My Fathers Song” is a poem about a son who lost his father and is grieving and referring back to old memories, reflecting on their past and the wonderful time he had with his father. “My Mother” on the other hand is a poem about a daughter who lost her mother and is having a difficult time coping as she reflects on the decisions she made as a child and how that affected her relationship with her mother. Despite their differences, the two poems share a true connection of love towards their parent. Most notably “My Fathers Song” and “My Mother” differ in the relationship with their parent, the settings in which the memories they hold of their parents take place, and who they are mourning over, yet the two have a strong emphasis on love.

One of the most difficult, yet rewarding roles is that of a parent. The relationship between and parent and child is so complex and important that a parents relationship with her/his child can affect the relationship that the child has with his/her friends and lovers. A child will watch their parents and use them as role models and in turn project what the child has learned into all of the relationship that he child will have. The way a parent interacts with his/her child has a huge impact on the child’s social and emotional development. Such cases of parent and child relationships are presented in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”. While Roethke and Plath both write about a dynamic between a child-father relationship that seems unhealthy and abusive, Plath writes about a complex and tense child-father relationship in which the child hates her father, whereas Roethke writes about a complex and more relaxed child-father relationship in which the son loves his father. Through the use of tone, rhyme, meter, and imagery, both poems illustrate different child-father relationships in which each child has a different set of feelings toward their father.

There are few poems which surprisingly talk about children from the parents’ point of view. The child on swallowing the world develops its own clear voice. In the poem Metaphors Plath compared herself to a riddle in nine syllables implying the long nine months of pregnancy before child birth and also intensifies the pang and suffering of carrying of a baby in her womb. The strong depiction of the figurative use of the melon skillfully corroborates the two sides of the prototype of a female character- one is of woman and the another is of an unborn baby that is resembled with “fine timbers”. Kate Moses concludes that in the poem’s culminating lines Plath’s narrator becomes completely and willingly “effaced” allowing her child full ownership. His stark idealization of “loaf’s big” image symbolizes the true picture of a pregnant woman whose womb is filled up by the unborn baby. Her strong depiction of the close-connection of a mother with that of her unborn child is incorporated by this images like “ponderous house”, “a cow in calf”

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.

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

In the short story “Initiation” by Sylvia Plath, Millicent Arnold is a narcissistic teenager undergoing her initiation into the most prestige social group at Lansing High. Despite being aware of the risk at losing her best friend, Tracy, Millicent eagerly seeks the opportunity to be part of a close-knit group and as a result, she is mistreated and forced to conform to the group’s narrow standards. Plath explains how being part of a social group does not necessarily help one grow individually, but rather assimilates them into what is portrayed as esteemed social status. As Millicent goes through the downgrading initiation process, she discovers the value of friendship and realizes that being associated with a certain group will not help her achieve confidence in her true self.

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.

Compare the ways in which poets reflect on parental relationships – Daddy by Sylvia Plath and Mother Who Gave Me Life by Gwen Harwood

Gwen’s poem, Father and child, represents the cyclical nature of life through the inevitability of consequence and growth. Paternal guidance and familial relationship is seen as a key

As we develop from children to adults, our perception of our parents can change drastically. The theme of the loss of innocence is portrayed in both poems, through the relationship with a father. Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Daddy’ is an extremely personal confession about realising her father was not the role model she had believed when she was young. The poem mentions that her father “died before I had time” and she “was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you”. The tone of the entire poem is bitter and sharp as Plath pours all her internalized feelings towards her father into the poem. Gwen Harwood explores the same theme of losing childhood innocence, but in a distinctly different way. The poem tells a story of a small child, who is determined to lose their innocence and is instead “a horny fiend”, sneaking out with their father’s gun. Harwood’s poetry sheds light on the idea of wisdom and growth and the desire children feel to be considered mature. Plath ends her poem in a defiant tone, claiming “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through”, indicating she is done with thinking about or mourning him and has reached a point where she can move on from the grief he has caused her. On the other hand, Harwood’s poem ends grimly, after the child’s father tells them to “End what you have begun” and the child kills the owl, before “I leaned my head upon my father’s arm, and wept, owl blind in

A child’s future is usually determined by how their parent’s raise them. Their characteristics reflect how life at home was like, if it had an impeccable effect or destroyed the child’s entire outlook on life. Usually, authors of any type of literature use their experiences in life to help inspire their writing and develop emotion to their works. Poetry is a type of literary work in which there is an intensity given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinct styles and rhythm. These distinct styles include different types of poems such as sonnets, villanelles, free verse, imagist poems, and many more. And these distinct styles are accentuated with the use of literary devices such as metaphors, similes, imagery, personification, rhyme, meter, and more. As a whole, a poem depicts emotions the author and reader’s can relate to. In the poem’s “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, we read about two different parent and child relationships. These two poems help portray the flaws and strength’s parents exhibit and how their children follow their actions and use it as a take away in their grown up lives.

I’ve killed two-- The vampire who said he was you”. The powerful imagery of these

The dominant image of a father figure that we are left with after reading this poem is far from a loving or pleasant one. In fact, it is rather the opposite. The “Daddy” whom the speaker is addressing in this poem ends up being portrayed as a vampire, who “the villagers” (77) — perhaps the people surrounding the speaker— never seemed to be fond of. This strengthens the image of a highly dysfunctional relationship, rather than a “normal,” loving one. As readers, we have to ask ourselves about the reliability of Plath’s character; however, seeing as she is clearly emotionally unstable. We learn about at least one suicide attempt in the lines

Maya Angelou said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” (Wanderlust 1). The relationship a mother has with her child transcends all other relationships in complexity. Maternity largely contributes to the female identity in part because the ability to sexually reproduce is uniquely female. With this ability often comes an unparalleled feeling of responsibility. That is, mothers experience an inherent desire to protect their children from the world and guide them through life. Serving as a child’s protector then transforms a woman’s perspective, or the female gaze. While these protective instincts often arise naturally, they are also reinforced by the ideas society’s perpetuates about motherhood. Globally, women are expected to assume the roles of wives and mothers. The belief that motherhood is somewhat of a requirement assists in the subjugation of women and reinforces a plethora of gendered stereotypes. While some women enjoy the process of childrearing, others feel that having a family comes at an irreparable cost: losing sight of oneself. In response to the polarized views surrounding maternity, several authors have employed different writing techniques to illustrate the mother-child dynamic. Through the examination of three narratives, spanning fiction and non-fiction, one is able to better define maternity and the corresponding female gaze in both symbolic and universal terms.

An analysis of poems discussing the different ideas of infancy and what infancy and childhood means to different people. The ideas of infancy vary across the poems from being a curse to the family to being a blessing from the heavens or even a key to break out of the boundaries set by reality. The poets use various literary devices such as metaphors, similes and different poem structure to convey the message that they carry. Each poem has its own viewpoint on infancy. On the whole four of the poems, “Infant Joy” –William Blake, “You’re” – Sylvia Plath, “Once upon a time” – Gabriel Okara and “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence all have a more positive view towards infancy whereas, “ Infant Sorrow” – William Blake and “Prayer before birth” – Louis MacNeice show a more pessimistic side towards infancy. Despite the fact that each poem has its own different point of view on the subject of infancy, they all seem to share one thought which is the fact that infancy represents innocence and in some cases a fresh start.