Journey To Power: A Close Examination Of Sylvia Plath's Daddy
Nghi Thai
Writing 37
19 April 2014
Journey to Power: a Close Examination of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”
In the 1950s, a new form of writing, called confessional, emerged that broke social norms by which the author would confess their innermost feelings, causing the reader to empathize with the narrator. In the pieces of literature published under this genre, authors wrote stories about personal feelings that were socially inappropriate to mention in public, many of which were autobiographical and some, fictional (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica). Sylvia Plath is one of the prominent figures in confessional writing, and even in death, she continues to affect millions with her writing. Among many of her works, "Daddy" is a well-known …show more content…
For example, when the narrator expressed her difficulty speaking to her father, she says, “The tongue stuck in my jaw.” Immediately afterwards, she draws an explicit image to represent her mental incapacity as a physical one and she stutters, “It stuck like a barb wire snare / Ich, ich, ich, ich / I could hardly speak,” making the reader compare her desperate attempt at speaking to a painful and gruesome one of escaping the sharp confines of barbed wire. She does this again when she presents an object that was pieced together clumsily by some unknown “they,” symbolizing her broken mental state after her failed suicide attempt: “they pulled me out of the sack / And they stuck me together with glue.” She utilizes imagery, repetition, and rhythm to paint a clear image without leaving any doubt to what she means as well as to compel the reader to experience her emotions. This leads to the impression of her straightforwardness and unrestrained tone, making the poem partly …show more content…
Even though Plath confesses her deepest secrets to the public, she manipulates her audience, captivating readers with her vivid imagery, lyrical poetry, and contrasting illustrations of “daddy.” Through publishing this poem, she reclaims power over herself and enforces power over her father. Shortly before her suicide, Plath stated that this poem was not about her and told BBC radio that the poem was about "a girl with an Electra complex [whose] father died while she thought he was God. Her case is complicated by the fact that her father was also a Nazi and her mother very possibly part Jewish. In the daughter the two strains marry and paralyze each other – she has to act out the awful little allegory once over before she is free of it" ("Daddy (poem)"). Whether the narrator was Plath or not, the poem seems to be her way of liberating herself by admitting to having these feelings, or ones similar to the narrator’s, which has only belonged in her head previously. It was her way of reminding herself of the feelings she once had, or the ones that she still has and that she has already struggled to conquer them. “Daddy” was Plath’s final gesture: concluding her life with her art and resolving her feelings through the finalized idea and act of
Writing 37
19 April 2014
Journey to Power: a Close Examination of Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”
In the 1950s, a new form of writing, called confessional, emerged that broke social norms by which the author would confess their innermost feelings, causing the reader to empathize with the narrator. In the pieces of literature published under this genre, authors wrote stories about personal feelings that were socially inappropriate to mention in public, many of which were autobiographical and some, fictional (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica). Sylvia Plath is one of the prominent figures in confessional writing, and even in death, she continues to affect millions with her writing. Among many of her works, "Daddy" is a well-known …show more content…
For example, when the narrator expressed her difficulty speaking to her father, she says, “The tongue stuck in my jaw.” Immediately afterwards, she draws an explicit image to represent her mental incapacity as a physical one and she stutters, “It stuck like a barb wire snare / Ich, ich, ich, ich / I could hardly speak,” making the reader compare her desperate attempt at speaking to a painful and gruesome one of escaping the sharp confines of barbed wire. She does this again when she presents an object that was pieced together clumsily by some unknown “they,” symbolizing her broken mental state after her failed suicide attempt: “they pulled me out of the sack / And they stuck me together with glue.” She utilizes imagery, repetition, and rhythm to paint a clear image without leaving any doubt to what she means as well as to compel the reader to experience her emotions. This leads to the impression of her straightforwardness and unrestrained tone, making the poem partly …show more content…
Even though Plath confesses her deepest secrets to the public, she manipulates her audience, captivating readers with her vivid imagery, lyrical poetry, and contrasting illustrations of “daddy.” Through publishing this poem, she reclaims power over herself and enforces power over her father. Shortly before her suicide, Plath stated that this poem was not about her and told BBC radio that the poem was about "a girl with an Electra complex [whose] father died while she thought he was God. Her case is complicated by the fact that her father was also a Nazi and her mother very possibly part Jewish. In the daughter the two strains marry and paralyze each other – she has to act out the awful little allegory once over before she is free of it" ("Daddy (poem)"). Whether the narrator was Plath or not, the poem seems to be her way of liberating herself by admitting to having these feelings, or ones similar to the narrator’s, which has only belonged in her head previously. It was her way of reminding herself of the feelings she once had, or the ones that she still has and that she has already struggled to conquer them. “Daddy” was Plath’s final gesture: concluding her life with her art and resolving her feelings through the finalized idea and act of