Plath and Rich Compared

Paper Summary:

This paper addresses two poems by poets Adrienne Rich and Sylvia Plath. First, it looks at Rich's poem, "Living in Sin", which confronts the traditional order and understanding of the relationship between genders in a new and intriguing way. The paper then looks at Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy," which offers a stringent critique of patriarchal notions of dominance within society.

From the Paper:

"Understood this way, the "daddy" of Plath's poem becomes a free-floating signifier whose attachment to the actual daddy of her childhood is tenuous at best. Indeed, the fact that Plath uses a childlike voice in the text that engages in a sort of nursery-rhyme call and response, further emphasizes the idea that the poem's daddy represents all of the frustrations and torment that the speaker has been forced to suffer by the patriarchal society in the world."

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