"Daddy"

[Dr. C.]

Sylvia Plath, “Daddy” (2838)

This is (yet another!) poem with a first-person narrator.  As I mentioned elsewhere, many times you should not immediately connect a first-person narrator with the poet, but in the case of poets identified as “Confessional,” you can do this.  So, in a sense, you can argue that Plath is the speaker here, or that she is imagining herself as the speaker.  Still, there’s a difference between Plath the poet and Plath the speaker.  Even when we identify the speaker in the poem as the poet, we should recognize that the writer is manipulating words, so there’s still a distinction between the person we know as Plath and the person speaking in this poem.  Got it? :)

This is a famous, well-anthologized poem, so perhaps you’ve already read it.  As you read each stanza, pay careful attention to the imagery that Plath uses.  If there are references you do not understand, check to see if they are footnoted here.  If not, look them up.  

Are there lines in this poem that stand out to you?  How would you characterize the speaker’s relationship with his/her parent?  

One aspect of this poem that has been commented upon by critics is the use of Nazi imagery.  Some readers object to Plath using this imagery.  Why do you think readers might respond negatively to Plath’s appropriation or use of Nazi imagery in this poem?

Does this poem resemble any other works we’ve read?

Resources:

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/11

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sylvia-plath

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/sylvia-plath

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/plath.htm

http://www.biography.com/people/sylvia-plath-9442550

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hHjctqSBwM

[Olivia Zuba]

This was a very interesting poem to read! The speaker clearly did not have a good relationship for her father. The imagery that Plath used in this poem was great, but it was very dark. The first line that caught my attention was, "Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time--." gave me the hint that she did not like her father.  The poem compares the speakers father to a Nazi and so the line "I think I may well be a Jew," really caught my attention. The lines, "I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die." also caught my attention. The speaker is confessing that she tried to commit suicide to get back at her father. The first and last lines in the last stanza also really caught my attention. "There's a stake in your fat black heart." and "Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I'm through." Overall I got the impression that the speaker hated her father, but maybe she just wanted him to love her? You can tell by reading this poem that the author is hurt. The Nazi imagery I can imagine would turn people off from this poem because it is such a dark poem. The imagery she used was very vivid but readers might be turned off when she compares herself to a Jew. 

[Andrew Wilkening]

Olivia, 

I also thought this poem was really interesting to read. I completely agree with your statement about the speaker not having a good relationship with her father. This poem did not seem to resemble "Those Winter Sundays," where the father was appreciated. This poem seemed to be very moving and intense. The choice of words emphasized different points and made the entire poem very different from others. It kept the reader engaged and curious what would come next. Many lines such as, "I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die" brings out many emotions and is very dark. I agree with your thoughts about how the speaker seems to have tried to commit suicide to see her father again. I have many thoughts about this poem and was initially confused after the first reading. After re-reading the poem, I believe the speaker did not have a great relationship with the father but wanted to have a sense of loved ones back. Although they didn't have the best relationship, it seemed like she wanted to revisit old times. I especially found the line, "I think I may well be a Jew" to be interesting and emotional considering the nazi concept of the poem. Overall, I was very confused and had mixed feelings and thoughts about this poem at first but grew to understand a better meaning of the poem. 

[Jeremy Newport]

What could this poem possibly mean? At first I read the poem thinking that Plath must surely be the child of some Nazi or German extremist. After reading her biography, it is difficult why to understand why someone might actually use such Nazi imagery, especially only 20 years removed from the Holocaust. I would think that this poem is one where Plath is the narrator. The fact that her father passed away to me is as good an indicator as any considering the narrator speaks of their father. I feel she uses the Nazi imagery because her father taught German at Boston and she very much thought of him as German. It could even be possible that German was spoken in her home as a child when she states, "I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw." (Lines 24-25) While this may not seem like a big deal, at the time Plath was growing up would have been during the first stages of the war after the Nazi's established themselves in 1932 as the NSDAP. While her Father may not have been abusive, the angry poem could simply be from the fact her father passed away. While her father didn't do anything wrong necessarily, the bio did indicate he died of diabetes complications which sound like they could have been avoided.

[Dr. C.]

Andrew,

You raise some good points here.  I think you are correct when you say that the poem expresses a relationship between father and child that is not ideal, and yet the child still wants to have the parent back.  There's a lot of anger here, but there's more than anger.

[Dr. C.]

Jeremy,

One way to think about it is to consider: what would be the worst label you could give someone of German ancestry?  That might explain the Nazi imagery, but there's plenty of debate about whether Plath "goes too far" or "appropriates" Holocaust imagery to express a personal anger.  

[Briana Roesel]

Several lines stood out to me when reading this poem, such as:

6 "Daddy, I have had to kill you.

29 "I thought every German was you"

35 "I think I may as well be a Jew."

80 "Daddy, daddy, you bastard. I'm through"

All of these lines described a bad relationship with the father. What made the relationship seem the worst was the comparison of Nazis and Jews. People will view this as a negative because of how morbid it is. I don't think there is a better way to describe how bad this relationship it, so using Nazis and Jews really works for this poem. 

[kasibhm]

Jeremy, 

  I was really confused by this poem at first as well. But I think that Plath and her father had a hard time getting along. It seems to me that because of when she grew up, Nazi's were her primary source for negative imagery. Therefore, she likens her father to a Nazi. I don't necessarily think it means that he was one? However, it could also make sense that she just didn't feel loved through her childhood and she blames him for that. Possibly she regrets that she could never be open with her father and that's why she writes "daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" at the end of her poem.

On Thursday, June 6, 2013 4:43:29 PM UTC-4, Jeremy Newport wrote: