Sylvia Plath- Daddy Analysis

• Auto-biographical poem.
• The subject of this poem is all about the relationship between her and her father.
• Electra complex is a psychoanalytic term used to describe a girl's sense of competition with her mother for the affections of her.
• There are 16 quintains (5 line stanzas) breaking up this poem.
• There is a lot of iambic verse, which means that the line is patterned by unstressed syllables followed by stressed syllables. This makes the poem rhythmic.

You do not do, you do not do

Anymore, black shoe,

In which I have lived like a foot

For thirty years, poor and white,

Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

• Plath's father walked all over her like a foot (Noun) but he doesn't anymore because he is dead.
• She felt like she couldn't be herself around him.
• The adjective Black symbolizes disease, death, famine and sorrow.
• First stanza has the rhythm of a nursery rhyme which is childish and relates to the name of the poem ‘Daddy’ as this is the name a child would call their father when they are younger. The choice of high frequency lexis and repetition ‘You do not do, you do not do’ in the first line even makes this stanza sound a little singsong-y. Also which adds to the nursery rhyme rhythm is the rhyming couplets ‘do’, ‘shoe’ and ‘Achoo’. This is an affectionate name and is usually used when I child wants or is asking for something from their father.  However this is not a happy nursery rhyme, as Plath won't dare to breathe or sneeze, meaning that she feels trapped and scared.

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

• ‘Daddy, I Have had to kill you’ Plath hasn’t physically killed her father but erased her father from her memory.
• Her father died before she had time to talk to him and make him proud.
• 'Full of God' her father was like God to her, she worshiped him.
• 'Bag full of God' the bag could symbolism the body bag that her father is in.
• 'Marble-heavy' could mean marble gravestone symbolizing 'death'.
• The adjective ‘grey’ and the noun ‘toe’ is contextual referencing to diabetes, which is the illness that her Father died of.

  

And a head in the freakish Atlantic

Where it pours bean green over blue

In waters off beautiful Nauset.

I used to pray to recover you.

Ach, du.

• 'I used to pray recover you' She doesn't pray anyone because she might have given up as it didn't work because her father died.
• 'Recover you'- She wants her father to become healthy again.
• 'Ach, du' German for 'oh, you'.

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.

• The repetitive 'wars' (noun) could mean flattened by more than one war.
• Does not know about her father’s past- mysterious. Shows the relationship they did not have.

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 jaw.

• 'Put your foot, you root' wondering where her father immigrated from.
• She is scared of her father because she cannot speak to him.
• Metaphor: 'Stuck in my jaw' scared to talk to her Father which affected their relationship.

It stuck in barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,

I could hardly speak.

I thought every German was you.

And language obscene

• 'Ich' is German for I.
• The repetition and onomatopoeia of ‘Ich’ could be stammering because she is nervous/intimidated by her father which stopped her building a bond with him.
• 'I thought every German was you' She seems him everywhere because she is disturbed by memories of her father. Her father haunts her mind. Her mind is playing games on her- going insane.
• 'Obscene' (adjective) she finds the language dirty and offensive.

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.

• Her father was a German.
• Comparing her relationship like a Jew and German.
• The metaphor ‘Chuffing (adjective) me off like a jew’ is disturbing and shows true hatred. This is a very powerful metaphor for how the speaker feels like she is a victim of her father, or perhaps for how she feels about men in general.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

• Tyrol (Proper noun) is the alpine mountain region on borders of Germany, this is the place where the Aryan race originated from.
• Contrast between the nouns ‘Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen’

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

·         The lexis choice ‘gobbledygoo’ relates with the nursery rhyme rhythm and the title of the poem which contrasts to the tone of the poem and the subject. This playfulness, paired with the violence she describes, shows us the speaker's internal struggle between loving and hating her deceased father.

·         "Luftwaffe" means air force in German, and specifically refers to the German air force of World War II. By using German, the speaker is remaining subtle in her metaphorical incrimination of her father as Nazi. She says that he is connected to the German air force, not that he's a Nazi straight-out.

·         The speaker uses imagery to build the metaphor that her father is a Nazi. The neat moustache is an allusion to Hitler's moustache. The bright blue Aryan eyes refer to the Nazi's ideal race of people.

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.

·         Swastika is a Nazi symbol.

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

·         Autobiographical: Plath’s father was a professor.

·         ‘A cleft in your chin instead of your foot’- Gives the reader on insight on what Plath’s father looked like. She is claiming her father is the devil, because the devil is described as having a cleft in its foot.

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.

·         There is a contrast between Plath’s father being described as evil and black, whereas Plath herself is described as being the victim (‘red heart’= adjective and noun).

·         ‘I tried to die’ this is relating to her first attempt of suicide.

·         ‘I thought even the bones would do’- she thought if her bones were buried with her fathers she would be able to get back to him.

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

•  Metaphor ‘And they stuck me together with glue’ this is relating to her time when she was in the asylum. Someone who has been glued back together wouldn't ever feel quite right again
•    ‘I made a model of you’ Plath tries to get back the years she did not spend with her father by finding a man like her father.

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.

·         Repetition of ‘I do, I do’. Is representing he vows when she wedded Ted Hughes.

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.

  Plath uses the metaphor ‘The vampire who said he was you’ to describe her father and her husband. These men go from being depicted as living horrors to un-dead horrors. The vampire has sucked the narrator's blood for seven years, probably the length of their marriage. This is a vivid metaphor for the pain that their relationship must have caused the speaker.

·         Autobiographical: Ted Hughes

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.

·         ‘Bastard’ (noun) is a verbal punch towards her father. However although the sentiment is bitter, Plath still addresses him tenderly ‘Daddy’, as a child might and the nursery rhyme, repetitive style remains the same. This could make the reader think that nothing has changed at all, as the speaker is still fearful naïve and broken.