شرح قصيده daddy ل sylvia plath

The poem Daddy is a cathartic text which reveals to us the nature of the persona's relationship with her father as well as the impact that her father's death had on her. Being a confessional poem, we can assume that it is about Plath herself. The purpose of this poem is so that Plath can purge herself of her emotions as she feels abandoned by her father after his death. The very title gives away the fact that Plath's emotional growth has been stunted and that she feels like an abandoned child

The mood and tone of the poem Daddy reflects the anxiety that was prevalent during the Cold War. The structure of the poem is similar to that of a nursery rhyme which reveals Plath's child mentality. The predominant rhyming scheme such as shoe', Achoo' and du' as well as the structured stanzas make the poem more powerful in the sense that it gives the poem more structure and thus it connotes that Plath is attempting to regain power and control after suffering from the aftermath of the death of her father. This can be linked back to the psyche of the people during the Cold War as uncertainty was predominant during that time and people were trying to re-establish control over their lives. There are also elements of aggression within the poem where the language of the poem changes from infantile to a more authoritative tone and the pronouns switches from I' to you'. This reiterates the previous point, where Plath is attempting to re-establish control while at the same time, blaming her father for abandoning her. The feeling of abandonment and loneliness is also reflected in the context in which she was writing in as the psyche of the people at that time was that they started to doubt the existence of God and that they were all alone in the universe and thus their existence had no meaning. The use of phonetics also contributes to the aggressive nature of the poem, with the use of harsh words like ich' and ach du'. The tirade within the poem is another reflection of the Cold War anxiety that was predominant during that time as there was the constant fear of another nuclear explosion happening again.

The themes prevalent in this poem are oppression and emancipation. The notion of oppression is evident when Plath uses the metaphors Nazi' and Jew' to describe her father and herself. This imago connotes that she is dependent on her father for survival as well as the fact that she is battling an internal war inside her and that she at this point, is a victim because of her father's



For a girl a father is the object of both love and hate at the same time. The attraction she feels toward her male parent is both deeply antagonistic and sexually compelling: the "love of the rack and the screw," where "rack" = bed and frame of torture and "screw" = sex and the turning of the shaft that further stretches the victim on the frame. One cannot resolve or transcend these two opposed emotions, for even at the end of the poem, "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" holds two contradictory meanings: "I've finally broken through to you" and "I've finished with you and want nothing more to do with you."

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محمد شريفCommentary on “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath
“Daddy”is a poem by Sylvia Plath about the speaker’s antipathy towards her father and her husband and how she has suffered for several years of her life due to these two men. In her poem, Sylvia Plath uses imagery, metaphors and diction to articulate strong emotions regarding the speaker’s devastating relationship with her father and her husband.
The poet characterizes the speaker’s father and husband negatively through the use of metaphors, imagery and diction to show how they have both hurt her through out her life. In the very first stanza, Plath uses the metaphor “black shoe” and the simile “like a foot” to illustrate how the speaker had been trapped and was not exposed to the outside world where she could express her opinions and feelings. She was pressured to live in a certain manner and had very little freedom. The poet refers to the speaker as “poor and white” to show her sadness andinnocence. The speaker “barely daring to breathe” shows that she was intensely scared of her father and never resisted him and was unable to speak any words against him. Plath clearly separates herself from her father by referring to him as black and herself as white. In this case, the color black can represent hopelessness and evil. Plath develops the same idea in the sixth stanza by showing that the speaker’s “tongue [was] stuck in [her] jaw” and she “could hardly speak” in front of her father. This again shows that the speaker was so afraid of her father that she was unable to confront him. A similar idea appears in the second stanza through imagery where the speaker refers to the pressure put upon her by her father as “marble heavy.” It shows how her father has always been pressurizing her throughout her life.
Later on in the poem, Plath uses similes and diction and visual imagery to show that the speaker’s father treated her as Hitler treated Jew. By using similes, Plath makes the speaker compares herself to Jews to represent her suffering due to her father. Similarly, later on through a simile when the poet shows that the speaker “began to talk like a Jew” and thought that she “may well be a Jew.” To complete the comparison, the poet uses diction and visual imagery to depict the speaker’s father as Hitler to represent his cruel behavior and brutal character. The speaker blames her father for “chuffing [her] off like a Jew” to compare her agony to the suffering of the Jews in Germany due to Hitler. The speaker accuses her father for making her life miserable by giving him Hitler’s physical appearance through visual imagery. She describes her father as having a “neat mustache and…[bright blue] Aryan eye” just like Hitler did to relate her dad’s brutal character to Hitler’s character.
Diction contributes significantly to the whole allusion of Hitler and Jews. Plath uses words such as Luftwaffe (name of the aircraft used by Hitler in WWII) and Meinkamf (name of Hitler’s campaign) to compare the speaker’s father to Hitler, which in turn represents male domination. The poet uses this allusion of Hitler and Jews to strongly illustrate what an awful and atrocious person speaker’s father was to her just like Hitler was to the Jews and how he made her life miserable. In the seventh stanza, Plath introduces the names of the concentration camps (Dachau, Aushwitz and Belsen) in Germany where several Jews were tortured terribly and killed. The diction again puts emphasis on the pain the speaker had to go throughout her life like Jews.
One of the factors that make this poem beautiful is Plath’s ability to bind the characters of the speaker’s husband and father into one character. At times, the speaker refers to both her father and her husband together to illustrate the impact that both of them have had on her life. Plath uses diction to characterize the speaker’s husband and also her father as beasts and brutal men through words such as “brute”, “devil”, “black heart”, “bastard”, “vampire” and “black man.” These words, having negative connotations, attach a negative character to the speaker’s husband and father and thus clearly reflect their obscene behaviors towards the speaker.
A comparison is established when the speaker accuses her husband as well as her father for breaking her “pretty red heart in two” and she acknowledges her father for having a “black heart” later. The comparison shows how the two men are emotionless and brutal and how they have impacted her sweet innocent life and have broken her heart. The use of color imagery helps to separate the speaker’s character from her father’s and husband’s character due to the difference in the meaning of the two colors. Black represents death and gloominess whereas red signifies life and happiness.
In the second last stanza of the poem, Plath uses imagery and diction to compare the speaker’s husband to a “vampire” who constantly “drank [her] blood for…seven years.” This is similar to the way the speaker thinks of her father. By using such as strong visual imagery of a vampire (her husband) drinking blood of its victim (the speaker), the speaker illustrates seven years of her painful and miserable life with her husband. In the last stanza, Plath introduces yet another visual imagery of people that knew the speaker’s father celebrating because of his death. The speaker realizes that she is one of these people and that she has had enough. The poem ends with the speaker finally achieving freedom when she says, “…I’m through.”
In conclusion, “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath is a very powerful and negative poem, which describes a harsh and miserable life of the speaker because of the two most important men in her life through metaphors, similes and diction

great work

thank you mohamed

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