"daddy"
Daddy"
Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” elicits the realistic anecdote of a tattered woman’s attempt to salvage her own reality. The poem begins with a description of the conditions of which the speaker suffered throughout her maimed childhood. It also goes into detail about the relationship between the speaker and her father and how his demanding presence affected her maturation. The speaker not only explains the situation, but also relates it to that of World War II. She feels as if she has metaphorically become a Jew under the wrath of the Aryan front. Her father has transformed too, representing the supreme, merciless dictator, Adolph Hitler. The speaker is scarred deep, she does not know what to do. Though her father’s physical body is dead, the memories of torment remain intact, forever disturbing, forever condemning. The only feasible solution she can arouse is suicide. Despite her efforts she remains alive, she knows now what she must do to free herself from his control. In a demonstration of the minds self defense mechanism to confront suffering and control what it feels, she marries a man. Not just an average man, a man who has been hand picked for his similarity to her monstrous father, all in hope that his presence will eliminate her involuntary paternal obsession for love.
The first twelve stanzas of “Daddy” reveal a resentful and distraught woman, who is examining her past “thirty years” of life. From the title one can conclude that the person in scrutiny throughout the majority of the poem is the father and the source of the speakers pain. This woman looks back on her “poor and white” childhood recalling living “like a foot” in a “black shoe” scarcely “daring to breathe or Achoo.” Plath’s word choice initiates a chain reaction of contemplations. The real life imagery contained in living “like a foot” in a “black shoe” for “thirty years,” brings a vivid metaphorical depiction of a painful struggle of being cramped and
Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” elicits the realistic anecdote of a tattered woman’s attempt to salvage her own reality. The poem begins with a description of the conditions of which the speaker suffered throughout her maimed childhood. It also goes into detail about the relationship between the speaker and her father and how his demanding presence affected her maturation. The speaker not only explains the situation, but also relates it to that of World War II. She feels as if she has metaphorically become a Jew under the wrath of the Aryan front. Her father has transformed too, representing the supreme, merciless dictator, Adolph Hitler. The speaker is scarred deep, she does not know what to do. Though her father’s physical body is dead, the memories of torment remain intact, forever disturbing, forever condemning. The only feasible solution she can arouse is suicide. Despite her efforts she remains alive, she knows now what she must do to free herself from his control. In a demonstration of the minds self defense mechanism to confront suffering and control what it feels, she marries a man. Not just an average man, a man who has been hand picked for his similarity to her monstrous father, all in hope that his presence will eliminate her involuntary paternal obsession for love.
The first twelve stanzas of “Daddy” reveal a resentful and distraught woman, who is examining her past “thirty years” of life. From the title one can conclude that the person in scrutiny throughout the majority of the poem is the father and the source of the speakers pain. This woman looks back on her “poor and white” childhood recalling living “like a foot” in a “black shoe” scarcely “daring to breathe or Achoo.” Plath’s word choice initiates a chain reaction of contemplations. The real life imagery contained in living “like a foot” in a “black shoe” for “thirty years,” brings a vivid metaphorical depiction of a painful struggle of being cramped and