Sylvia Plath's poem "The Daddy"

Sylvia plath 

Sylvia Plath has been in American poet. She is born up Boston Massachusetts, 27 Oct, 1932. As the daughter of two German speaking intellectual, she grew up in a close culture climate. After graduating from Smith College. She won a fellowship to Cambridge uni. Where she met ted Hughes, then married him in 1956. Her emotionally intense and rhythmically brittle poetry draws on painful experience her father’s death when she was eight, her knowledge of atrocities like the concentration camps, the breakdown of her marriage. Her confessional style and suicide made her, for many readers a symbol of the woman as a victim in a man’s world.

•       The Daddy

You do not do, you do not do   

Any more, black shoe

In which I have lived like a foot   

For thirty years, poor and white,   

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.   

You died before I had time

Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,   

Ghastly statue with one gray toe   

Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic   

Where it pours bean green over blue   

In the waters off beautiful Nauset.   

I used to pray to recover you.

Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town   

Scraped flat by the roller

Of wars, wars, wars.

But the name of the town is common.   

My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.   

So I never could tell where you   

Put your foot, your root,

I never could talk to you.

The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.   

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.   

And the language obscene

An engine, an engine

Chuffing me off like a Jew.

A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.   

I began to talk like a Jew.

I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna   

Are not very pure or true.

With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck   

And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,

With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.   

And your neat mustache

And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You

Not God but a swastika

So black no sky could squeak through.   

Every woman adores a Fascist,   

The boot in the face, the brute   

Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,   

In the picture I have of you,

A cleft in your chin instead of your foot   

But no less a devil for that, no not   

Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when they buried you.   

At twenty I tried to die

And get back, back, back to you.

I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,   

And they stuck me together with glue.   

And then I knew what to do.

I made a model of you,

A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.   

And I said I do, I do.

So daddy, I’m finally through.

The black telephone’s off at the root,   

The voices just can’t worm through.

If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two

The vampire who said he was you   

And drank my blood for a year,

Seven years, if you want to know.

Daddy, you can lie back now.

There’s a stake in your fat black heart   

And the villagers never liked you.

They are dancing and stamping on you.   

They always knew it was you.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

‘The daddy’ poem written by Plath as woman writer and she became feminine ideas see in this poem. The daddy can be viewed as a poem power of man. Here we find that how woman face to problems and gender discrimination in poem. In which uses poet innumerable, metaphors, symbols, imaginary and subtle world play to show us that her father is like a Nazis.  The government killed by its own people. Here speaker indicates that her German father is like a Nazi and that she is like a Jew. In lines 29 to 35 were the poet uses a train engine as a metaphor for the German language which her father speaks the train is taking the poet to a concentration camp like Jews were during the holocaust. Which is a metaphor for how she feels that she is victim of her father? Again the connection with Nazis becomes evident when the poet uses different metaphor to compare her father. We find that Sylvia says that to her father has to person of Nazi party and also found that political things and it may be that how woman face to problems. In this poem we find that Sylvia’s father being like god to another being a Swastika the symbol of Nazism. In here lines 47 reference of hyperbole or extreme exaggeration the swastika is not just black but so black that it blots out the sky again in the next line.  The poet told that to her relation between her fathers and connected to emotions them. She mentioned about fascists who like Nazi are none to be tyrannical and cruel. The poet says that her father is Nazi and she loves her father but as cruel one she does not like him. Sylvia has woman and they give ideas about World War 2 and how they cruel and tyrannical situations of woman and also we find and see that woman has no one can help and they became hopeless. It may reality between European nations and it may woman no any identity of family and they are crucial situations. Sylvia uses metaphor of the word “luft waffe” means German air force of World War 2. What the poet wants to Conway here is that her father is connected to the German air force and not that he is a Nazi strait out. Sylvia has used the imaginary and subtle word play depicting and remembering of wars, wars, wars. She uses imaginary to build the member that her father is a Nazi.  The Hitler is an allusion (subtle reference), Sylvia use word “mustache” they became controversial and she says that to poem in again ‘the bright blue, ironed eyes’ refers to the Nazis ideal race of people. 

In this poem, we find that women situation about tyrannic and cruel. and in Germany at rules about nazi party and hitler became leader, he govern by rules to Germany and we can says that Sylvia plath's father has work in Nazi party and became danger situation to women. and she is unhappy about her loneliness. The poet use of diction between her father as Nazi Germany. Also we find that her give ideas became feminine and use this word “luft waffe” as Nazi people. The poet became argues and questions that to how Nazi are cruel? And she use word became to Nazi party people as Sylvia says that to German army tanks were tyrannical and crucial.     She also hurt that to her father and they compares between her father joined Nazi and she has no any help them. The poet reference to German situation of World War 2 and how woman are struggle? And she use metaphor and also word panzer men as ‘German army’.

·       The theme of gender

Sylvia Plath ‘The Daddy’ is not only an exploration of the speakers’ relationship with her father and husband, but of women relation with men in gender. Sylvia wrote this poem on 1960, a time when the feminine fought for woman rights and made big progress in the way issues of women education and the gender issues was viewed in society. Although this poem does not address feminism directly, and she has used powerful statement spoken by a female against males. We can interpretation this poem as an address to not a particular person but only men. She argues that any male who has suppressed betrayed or perhaps worst of all, died and behind their daughter and wives.

·       Morality in the poem ‘The Daddy’

This poem explores paradox of death, after life and memories of the past. The poet says that to her father die. The poem Daddy addressed to a dead person. Sylvia Plath’ father as possessed with morality and she use word ‘Daddy’ moral and it became emotions and feeling her father. Her own feelings, when poet father dies, she sees as killing herself as a way to became reunited with him. In this poem Sylvia Plath also declares that she has to kill him. Here we find that this sentence is paradox and also as daughter love to her father and relations to her father and they became declare she kill him.
·       Supernatural in ‘The Daddy’
As we noted under the morality theme, Daddy is addressed to someone (the poet father is dead) the theme of morality and she narrator to a dead person makes the poem a supernatural one. The poem goes even further when we notice the other supernatural things mentioned in poem. There are vampire, devils, and a statue that crosses the entire United States. This supernatural elements makes the poem intimidation and also investigating to read especially when she tries to die, is even stuck back together with glum.  

·       My point of view

Plath has feminist poet, her argues that any men who has suppressed, betrayed or perhaps worst of all died and left behind their daughter and wives. Sylvia has against to muscular. She use paradox and metaphor for her father and she against to how Nazi party rule way to Germany and how women are no anyone help them and as daughter or wives, they know any relation has broken down. And also she gives that to political views and reference to Hitler as Nazi, her father as a Nazi person. In her poem in long sentence and stanza. She portrays to World War 2 situation about women face them.     

·       Conclusion

As we conclude that Sylvia Plath has feminist ideas and she create gender different and political argues in the poem. Her also powerful statement that female against males. And Sylvia Plath says that also her father relationship broken down and also she declare that she kill her father.