Sylvia Plath: An analysis of "Daddy"

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The Poem Daddy, by Sylvia Plath describes the authors relationsship and feelings towards her father, that have also carried over into all of her relationships with men. In the poem her father is shown to be all powerful, Godlike. She describes her feelings that she must kill her father, but at age ten her father dies before she has the chance to do him in herself. Because of this her feelings towards him are left unresolved. These unresolved feelings lead to problms in all of her relationships with men, lead to feelings of oppression and control by men. This, I think, is the underlying theme of the poem. The struggle of a woman in a male dominated society. Now I will go through the poem stanza by stanza describing and explaining the images presented.

In the first stanza Plath describes the influence her father has over her. She describes herself as a foot living inside a shoe. The shoe being her father. She describes herself as poor and white inside the shoe. White because she is always inside the shoe, it consumes her, keeping out the air and sunlight that see needs. This is interesting because the purpose of ahoe is to protect the feet, but in her case the shoe is trapping her keeping her in a state of fear towards her father. This fear of her father is so great that she becomes barley daring to breath or Achoo. Of course it must be hard to breath while being completely covered by the shoe of her father.

In the second stanza she describes her father as Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, and as a ghastly statue. Marble is an expensive material, but it is still very cold and hard, like her father. He is impressive, but almost untouchable, like a statue. I think what she meant by a bag full of God is that her father had god-like qualities, but of course he was not a god. However, like a god, he is all powerfull in her mind, intangible, and like God she feels love for him. However, this love is seems to based in her fear of him, much like how many feel towards God.

The last line of the secaond stanza, Big as a Frisco seal carries over its meaning to the thrid stanza beginning with, And a head in the freakish atlantic. What i think these lines mean is that she sees her father as so big that he spans the continent. This further illustrates the power which she thinks her father posseses.

In the fourth stanza Plath makes reference to her fathers bithplace in Poland, a place that was destroyed by wars, wars, wars. She almost downplays her fathers importance by saying that the name of the town is common, meaning perhaps that he came from humble and simlpe beginnings. This carries over into the fifth stanza where she says ...there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I think that what this means is that there were so many like him, that maybe he wasnt as god-ike as she thought. Again she usees feet in metaphor. In this case her fathers feet are what rooted him, like a plant, to his birthpalce.

The end of the fifth stanza and throughout the sixth she descrbes one reson for the distance between her and her father, that there is a language barrier. Of course her fear of him was on reason her tongue stuck in her jaw, but in addition to this his language, german, kept him distant to her. She says, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obsene. She may be refering to the harsh sounding way that german is spoken, a harsh language for the harsh man that her father appears to be.

In the seventh and eigth stanzas she describes her feelings that she may be part Jewish, as her mother was part Jewish. She says, An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Aushwitz, Belsen. These were concentration camps during WWII. Perhaps she feels that at any time her father will send her to these places because of her ancestry. This of course reinforceses her fear of her father.

In the ninth and tenth stanzas she describes her father as a Nazi. She describes his neat mustache, and his Aryan eye, brght blue, these are both references to Hitler. Aslo she uses the term Panzer-man which was a member of the German army during WWII. She further emphasises his power over her with the lines, Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Like the shoe metaphor her father is so powerful that he blocks the sunlight, he keeps her in darkness. I like how she uses God and a swastika juxtaposed.The swastika in the sky represents her father, black, evil, and full of control. On the other hand, God is good, loving, and he would have let the sunlight through. The next line, I think, is my favorite in the poem. Every woman adores a Facist, of course she is using sarcasim here. This sarcasim adds some lightness to an otherwise very dark poem.

In stanza eleven she describes a picture she found of her father. She says, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot. she is making her father out to be the devil himself, perhaps in disguise because instead of having cloven feet like the devil he has his cleft in his chin. She goes on to say that he is no less a devil for that beacuse he bit her pretty little red heart in two. I think what she meant by this was that he created in her both a love and a hate towards him.

In stanzas twelve and thirteen she describes the death of her father when she was ten years old, and her own subsequent suicide attempt at age twenty. In fact she says, AT twenty I tried to die And to get back, back, back to you. I though even the bones would do. I think she tried to kill herself because the feelings she had towards her father were left completely unresolved when he suddenly died. She felt that she had to get back to him, that something woudl be restored if she could.

In stanzas thirteen and fourteen she describes herself after attemting suicide. She says that they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. You could almost take this literally, she had fallen apart, tried to kill herself, and was then saved and glued back together. This event may have helped her a bit, perhaps by making her see that her father is gone and no longer has power over her. I think this is so beacuse she goes on to say, So daddy, Im finally through. The black telephone is off at the root, The voices just cant worm through. Again she makes reference to roots, that the black telephone (not just a telephone but a black telephone, black having bad connotations) has lost its roots, perhaps she means that her fear of her father was rooted into her, but now these roots have been disturbed. Since these roots have been disturbed the voice of her father that has been haunting her cannot get through tto her.

I said in the last paragraph that she was saved, but it appears she was not safe for long. Stanza fifteen describes a vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year this I believe is a reference to her husband. It seems as if she was alomst dependent on being controled by the men in her life. She replaces her father with her husband who drank her blood, drainning her emotionally like her father did. She even says, Daddy you can lie back now meaning that his position of power has been filled.

In the last stanza she describes how the villagers are even glad he is dead, dancing and stamping on you. Perhaps these villagers are not seperate people but extensions of her own personality. The last line, Daddy, daddy, you bastard, Im through shows the resolvment of her feelings towards her father. Of coures one could argue that these feelings are not really resloved but have just been moved from her father to her husband.

This poem is wonderful in its imagery and clearly and almost beautifully (in a dark sort of way) describes the problems that she had with her father. It is obvious that this realtionship marked her greatly. She is unable to resolve the feelings of hate and fear towards her father so instead of completely moving on she brings these feelings into her realtionship with her husband. This is why I think that the main point of the poem is the control by men by which she must always live under.

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