Abstract This paper is an examination of the complex relationships that can occur between fathers and daughters as evidenced in Sylvia Plath's infamous poem "Daddy." The paper analyzes Plath's treatment of her own father in the poem, particularly the way in which the poem oscillates between the ideal and the terrible, evoking images of the divine and also the terrible.
From the Paper "Despite proclamations to the contrary, our relationships with our fathers can be incredibly complex. The Western images of the ideal father, perhaps epitomized in paintings by Norman Rockwell, are simplistic and fail to capture the depth of the interaction that can exist between fathers and their children. In particular, the relationship between a father and a daughter can be especially complex - as Freudian psychologists would probably be the first to point out. Whether or not they have the issue correct, the fact remains that fathers and daughters interact in ways that oscillate between adoration and hatred. The desire to be loved and accepted is often mediated by the absence of the father. This complex relationship is more than apparent when we confront one of the most famous (or infamous, depending on one's perspective) poems by Sylvia Plath: "Daddy." "
Abstract This paper examines Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy", a poetic tirade directed at a father who is the source of considerable pain. It looks at how the narrator in "Daddy" is actually a 30-year-old woman and presumably the voice of Sylvia Plath and how this poem, like much of Plath's poetry, is autobiographical. It shows how in "Daddy" she attempts to connect the intensely personal suffering of a woman (Plath) who never recovered from the death of her father to a more universal suffering, whether it's between father and daughter, husband and wife or tyrant and captive.
From the Paper "In Plath's Incarnation: Woman And The Creative Process, Bundtzen describes Plath's metaphor of men as fascist as a larger feminine issue. ?Plath is not concerned primarily with personal afflictions, except as they represent a wider feminine condition. As she puts it in ?Daddy,? ?Every woman adores a fascist (30).? Or, every woman adores God-like men who represent power.
To post-feminist women, such a statement might seems incredibly dated or exagerrated. "Daddy" was published in 1961, and this type of relationship was very real to Plath. In fact, she focused extensively on the oppressive relationships in her life in her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar."
Abstract This paper examines in detail the character of Big Daddy and what he represents. The story revolves around him and his family, and their reaction to his pending death from cancer. The characters' personalities are explored and their relationships to each other are examined. Big Daddy wishes to leave his estate to his son but the son is unmarried and has no children. Homosexuality, father-son relationships and inter-personal communication are all topics addressed in this paper.
From the Paper "Big Daddy was just a drifter when he first came to the plantation owned by two gay men, Jack Straw and Peter Ochello. He only intended to stay long enough to do some yard work and make some pocket money, but he ends up becoming the overseer of the plantation, and inherits it when they die. He loves the "twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile," and he is determined it will stay with Brick, who he thinks is the better and more deserving of his two sons."
Abstract This paper discusses the family portrayed in Maggard's song and the dynamics at work in a four-person household headed by a blind musician and his hearing-impaired wife. It discusses how the family travels the country, performing wherever they can find an audience. Despite the handicaps of both parents and the family's struggle to make a living, their relationships are strong and positive, buoyed by faith and mutual trust. It examines how, although Haggard's lyrics are fictional, they are based on his wife's experiences, and they ring true. Daddy Frank's family could have been extremely dysfunctional, yet they managed to turn their problems into strengths, demonstrating one of the most important ways in which families can be positive, healthy factors in the lives of their members.
From the Paper "The title character in Haggard's "Daddy Frank," is a guitar player who was born blind. His wife lost her hearing to a fever. The narrator, their son, "don't remember how they got acquainted" (Haggard, 1971), but sees how "their one and only weakness made them strong" (Haggard, 1971). He and his sister, who accompanies the group on tambourine, sing with Daddy Frank; sometimes their father also plays "French harp" (harmonica). The narrator explains, "That little band was all a part of living/And our only means of living at the time" (Haggard, 1971). Daddy Frank's little combo has learned to make beautiful music together, and that music supports them."
Abstract This paper looks at two examples of poems whose treatment of their subject are both varied and unusual - "Valentine" by Carol Ann Duffy and "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. It looks at how these two poems use a variety of poetic techniques to express their feelings effectively and how although both poems are unique, they are at the same time themed similarly on "love-hate" relationships.
From the Paper "An unusual and interesting technique used by Plath was her constant referral to different colours - "black, white, grey, green, blue, blue, black, black, red..." I believe she may have employed colour as a metaphor to reflect all the conflicting emotions inside her, each colour representing a different emotion. For example, "black" has connotations of darkness and evil and so may have been used as a symbol for hate, while red may have been used to represent the love she feels for her father at the same time. It is interesting to notice how the word "black" is repeated a number of times while the colour "red" is only mentioned once. This may have been used to symbolise the fact that most of her feelings towards her father are those of anger and hate. It may also have been used to reflect on her rebellion to Nazi Germany - very little red (which was the predominant background of the Nazi swastika) is mentioned in the poem while lots of other colours are mentioned that are not in the swastika."
Abstract Sylvia Plath's problems provided literary release for her enduring poetry. This paper concisely summarizes Plath's life and then analyzes the biographical catalysts of "Mirror" and "Daddy." By citing tones, metaphors, and popular interpretations, the paper places the poems in the context of Plath's life.
Outline
Biography
Criticism
From the Paper "Plath began to explicitly explore her individuality after the birth of her daughter, causing the candid, yet austere "Mirror." In the poem, Plath is metaphorically both a mirror and the woman reflected in the mirror in the poem, creating herself as the subject. She is initially a "silver and exact" mirror, and "most of the time [she] meditate[s] on the opposite wall" (Hughes 173). With simple phrasing and precise diction, Plath establishes her attitude of blunt intimacy towards her newly-realized self; she uses the tone to show that she is exploring herself honestly. Then, a "woman bends over" the mirror, which is "[n]ow... a lake," and begins "[s]earching [the lake's] reaches for what she really is" (Hughes 174). "
Abstract This paper examines Sylvia Plath's most famous poem, 'Daddy', in order to assess whether the narrator's position has been influenced by the 'patriarchal society' in which she lived, or if her 'own ambitions' led to the heavily depressed attitude that produced a poem in which she compares her own life to the suffering that occurred during the Holocaust. It also looks at how far Plath's personal life affected the piece, and the extent to which her autobiography plays a part in explaining the feelings and beliefs held by the narrator of the poem.
From the Paper "Upon further analysis of this poem, however, it becomes quite apparent that despite Plath's attempts to maintain a certain level of distance from the piece through incorrect facts such as claiming that the narrator 'was ten when they buried [her father]' (l. 57) whereas in fact Plath was around eight years old when Otto Plath died, there are various other indications that 'Daddy' is a highly autobiographical piece of writing, including two images in particular that relate quite specifically to her German-Polish father and, towards the end of the poem, several that seem to implicate Ted Hughes, though perhaps less pointedly."
Abstract Few poems have ever been written that embody the raw emotion evoked by Sylvia Plath's "Daddy". This paper examines how, written only four months before her suicide, the poem is a final purge of emotions. It discusses how it is a delusional account of one woman's spiral into depression and lunacy and how it has remained a topic of controversy since it was first published.
From the Paper "The poem opens up with Plath's first description of her father as a black shoe, "in which the daughter has 'lived like a foot', suggesting her submissiveness and entrapment." (Rosenblatt 4). She is afraid to breathe or "achoo." The poem begins with childish language: achoo, rather than sneeze, repetition of phrases, because Plath has traveled back to a child-like state of mind. Even by titling the poem "Daddy," rather than Father, "Plath lets us know that she recognizes the outburst as childish, truer to the child's fantasy of domination and abandonment than the adult's reconstruction of the facts." (Breslin 5). "
Abstract The paper analyzes the poem, discussing the poet's relationship with her father. The paper cites different stanzas throughout the poem to explain Plath's fear of her father. It reviews her father's character, as it is developed in different metaphors in the poem, such as a black shoe and a black swastika. The paper speculates on a possible tie-in between Plath's father and her husband. In conclusion, the writer suggests that perhaps it is Plath's own acknowledgment of the contradictory emotions inside of her which have freed her from her "Daddy's" iron psychological grasp.
From the Paper "Plath describes her father vividly through the language which she uses. Though the comparisons made are not always immediately clear in respect to their relation to her father, they create single mental pictures that are paired to create a solid mental image of a harsh, oppressive patriarch. The first stanza begins to calibrate the readers senses to the kind of man Plath's father was. It is painfully obvious that Plath felt rather subdued by her father: "Barely daring to Breathe or Achoo"."
Abstract This paper analyzes Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy," about her powerful and dominating father, from a feminist critique. The analysis argues that the speaker must free herself of her father's control over her in the past in order to experience healing and greater understanding in the present.
From the Paper "In Sylvia Plath's memorial to her father Daddy, the speaker demonstrates a great hatred toward her father. Plath ends her poem with "Daddy daddy you bastard I'm through". Despite this sentiment it can also be seen that the poem is actually a .."
Tags: fathers, daughters, patriarchy, family, anger, hatred, power, relationships, marriage
Abstract The paper analyzes relationships between wives and husbands in Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and between daughters and fathers in Plath's "Daddy". The paper discusses how, in both works, female speakers with mental illnesses try to overcome the influence of either an overpowering father or an overprotective husband in order to become more authentic, autonomous, adult selves. The paper concludes that patriarchal interference thwarts the female speaker's individuating process.
From the Paper "The first-person narrator, and protagonist, of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" (whose name may actually be Jane) is an imaginative, creative, and (for those and other reasons) very frustrated upper-middle-class young woman. She yearns to write and be creative as she had before the story opens. Now, however, she is prohibited, by her neurologist; her well-meaning husband, and by association, society (i.e. patriarchy), from all imaginative or creative pursuits."
Abstract The paper examines how Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy" is the performance of a mind that is finally confronting its own suffering and attempting to exorcise the influence of the speaker's father. The paper highlights the imagery, rhyme and repetition that demonstrates how Plath does not create in this poem, but only destroys and rejects her father.
From the Paper "The poem opens with the assertion that "[y]ou do not do, you do not do / Any more" , declaring the speaker's position as one forced to confront her situation with regard to her father. The poem exists as the performance of a mind that is finally confronting its own suffering and attempting to exert a control over the idea that has long oppressed it. The speaker jumps from nursery rhyme to ritual, English to German, from longing to curse. The childlike rhyme and repetition suggests the helplessness of the child and the combination of fear and love the father inspired. Simple, insistent rhythm and rhyme schemes, coupled with repetition, lend both a sense of storybook rhythm and that of a mystical spell by which the exorcism may drive off evil."
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of the poem "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. Partially due to the success of her autobiographical novel "The Bell Jar", which details her partial recovery from suicidal depression, Plath's poetry has been frequently analyzed through the lens of her clinical mental problems. This paper offers a similar point of view, studying "Daddy" in light of the author's mental state of mind. The paper brings to light a number of issues, evident in Plath's work, including the daughter's relationship with her father, fascism, class status, and anti-Semitism among others.
From the Paper "Plath's own German heritage and her difficult relationship with her own father, who died at an early age, makes the highly personal interpretation of this poem often given by critics seem more justified. The poem is more complex than a pure confessional, however. "Daddy" does attempt to create an analogy between the personal depression and despair of the poet that has caused her to embark upon unfulfilling and controlling relationships with men and a larger historical injustice of violence inflicted upon oppressed people and women. Ultimately, however, the end of the poem locates the work in the individual speaker's unique personal despair and inner, rather than outer political conflicts."
Tags: nazi, war, father, daughter, soldier, literature, poem
Abstract Confessional poets often write about their own personal experiences, without filtering painful emotions. One of the 1960s most influential confessional poets, Sylvia Plath, used the anger and grief that stemmed from her father's death when she was only eight as the subject of many poems. This paper discusses tone in two of the most well-known Plath poems, ?Daddy? and ?Lady Lazarus,? in which she tackles her depression in very different ways. It shows how Plath's word choice in both poems creates two opposing tones on similar subject matter. In ?Daddy,? Plath is clearly filled with bitterness and rage, but she is almost playful and sarcastic in ?Lady Lazarus.? The paper shows, too, how Plath channels her own personal world of suicidal escape in both poems, but she clearly changes tone in each by selecting words with specific meanings. Biographical information on Plath is also included.
From the Paper "Plath conveys this instability in her poem ?Daddy.? Written in 1962, twenty-two years after her father's death and just one year before her suicide, "Daddy" is not only an obvious cry for help but also a stream of unabashed rage toward the father who left her, the husband who betrayed her, and the circumstances that ultimately left her alone. Plath chooses words like ?Aryan eye,? ?swastika,? ?Fascist,? and "devil" to associate with her father ("Daddy" 44, 46, 48, 54). All of these words conjure feelings of hatred and liken the father in the poem to someone like Adolf Hitler, a historical figure whose name is almost synonymous with oppression. This comparison is even more evident when Plath describes her father's Hitleresque "neat mustache" and "bright blue" eyes ("Daddy" 43-44). Plath, as the speaker in ?Daddy,? calls herself a Jew and speaks from the perspective of an innocent who has been wrongly persecuted ("Daddy" 40)."
