‘Daddy’ Task Sylvia Plath PDF

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Very useful history notes from a top uc lecturer. I took these notes using particular fonts and colour coding which is very aesthetic and easy to follow. These notes are useful for exam preparation, information for essays and to help you become an A student....

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‘Daddy’ Task

NOTES for Literacy essay Stanza eleven to fourteen ‘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 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.

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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

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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.’

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The Biographical Context This poem is by Sylvia Plath, a confessional poet who often used her own experiences as inspiration for her poems. This poem is conflicting with dark imagery, for example, in the insensitive and confronting way that Plath uses Nazi imagery throughout the poem. The poem is narrated by a speaker who voices Plath’s own concerns about her own father and how she struggled with her emotions with her father dying early. The poem, despite the positive connotations that the title “daddy” holds, defies the common viewpoint of fathers as loving, instead, this poem is Plath’s tirade about her own father. However, in part the speaker may have possibly made up this dark imagery about her father since she did not remember him from a young age. Hence, the speaker is symbolically a reflection of Plath’s own depression about her father. Since Plath had just split with her husband Ted Hughes this gave her political freedom in her poetry, such as the use of Nazi and Jewish imagery to describe her suffering. As Plath wrote home to her mother, “I need no literacy help from him. I am going to make my own way,” as she wrote before she wrote the poem. (16 October 1962) In stanza 12 of the poem the speaker expresses, with the use of dark imagery, the depths of

her hatred towards her “daddy”. This is because of the oppressive presence of her father in her mind after his death. This is revealed by the Nazi imagery by how she relates her father to the devil and Hitler “with a Meinkampf look.” There is also frequent repetition of the word “black” in both stanzas 11, 13 and 14 which reveals the negative connotations the daddy has for the speaker. This is because the speaker has imagined the atrocities that her German father would have committed as a Nazi because since she did not know him since he died young she has developed a negative image towards him. This part of the poem also especially highlights the speakers signs of the Electra Complex, as the poet Plath said herself that, “The poem is spoken by a girl with an Electra Complex. The father died while she thought he was god.” So the speaker sexualises her father by how she obsessively thinks of him and how he consumes her thoughts, she cannot forget the image of her father. As Plath describes that there is a narrative element to the poem by how the speaker’s father was a Nazi and as Plath describes, “Her case is complicated by the fact that her father was also a Nazi and her mother possibly part Jewish.” This is a projection of Plath's own life by how her husband, Ted Hughes, once blamed Plath’s depression on her Oedipal relationship with her dead father. This was because Plath was unable to forget her father who died when she was eight. Stanza’s 11 to 14 have a biographical context because the poet Plath projects her own life into the poem which makes it confessional, which is a very common style of Plath to use in her poetry to evoke emotion in the reader. This is because the image of the speakers father in the poem reflects Plath’s own father who looked very similar, with a “cleft in your chin” which links her father to the speakers father revealing that Plath, like the speaker, feels a deep sense of hatred towards her father. This could refer to Plath’s own experiences by how she felt the weight of her father's expectations on her which made her end up disliking the image of her father in her mind. Plath’s father was also a University professor so when the speaker says, “You stand at the blackboard daddy” this reflects her own thoughts about her father and how she remembers very little about her father but a few images. The blackboard also shows her father in a negative domineering way. Plath’s father died when she was eight, similarly to the speaker. The “Daddy” poem is the poet Plath’s way of expressing her bitter emotions about her own father by how he was oppressive. Plath’s father was reported to have “pro-Nazi tendencies”, as shown by how he was once investigated by the FBI. Even Plath admitted in her own journal in 1958 that her father “He… heiled Hitler in the privacy of his own home.” Therefore, this would have been inspiration for the poem with the speakers father being Nazi and how the poet has Austrian ancestry, which she uses to show that she is a victim of her father in an allegorical sense, hence, the use of Nazi imagery in the poem to reveal that she, Plath, was a victim, of either depression or her father’s expectations. Despite this feeling of hate, the speaker reveals that she still loves her father in stanza 12 of the poem, at least when he died. Perhaps the speaker is also angry at her father because he died early and how she never got to know him. The speaker expresses how she was heartbroken when her father was dead by, “how he bit my pretty red heart in two.” This delves into the Electra Complex by how Plath’s father died and how she attempted suicide in 1953 due to her fragile state of mind when she had depression. There is development in the poem by how Plath reveals in stanza 12 that the speaker was heartbroken when her father died when she was young. This also reflects the death of Plath’s own father’s death, and how she suicided at twenty. The repetition of “back” emphasises that her father is very far away in heaven, but also it creates the chant, since it is repeated three times, that the

speaker is exorcising herself from the memory of her father and her father's oppressive presence in her mind. “Even the bones would do,” states the speaker which emphasises in an emotive way that the speaker (and the poet Plath too) missed the father immensely. This is a contrast and a development in the poem because now the speakers wants to forget her father, revealing that the memory of her father is dominating her life. Furthermore, the poet is exhausted from being drained about her father’s presence in her mind. In stanza 14, the speaker says, “I made a model of you.” This reveals another part of the Electra Complex in the speaker by how she married a man similar to her domineering father, due to how she misses her father and she replaces and conflates her father with her husband. Psychosexually the speaker creates a “substitute” father in her husband. The poet Plath hints that this is what she did with her husband, Ted Hughes. Their relationship was a tumultuous relationship which ended with Hughes leaving Plath for another woman, with a estrangement between Ted Hughes and Plath. This is a very depressive and obsessive theme showing that the speaker is not in a healthy state of mind, however, this is more controlled than the Tulip poem of Plath’s because the “Daddy” poem is more of a accusatory tone than submissive, perhaps reflecting Plath’s stronger state of mind at this point. This poem has an empowering sense of confidence and victory at the end of the poem, perhaps, because Plath feels enlightened by cleansing herself of her own father and by this clear verbal attack at her husband. Poetic Devices There is frequent repetition of the word “black” in both stanzas 11, 13 and 14 related to the speakers father. “Black” has negative connotations of oppression and is metaphorical in how black absorbs all light, so that there is no hope in the speaker that she will overcome her fathers image. Also “black” is metaphorical for being in the dark about something, meaning that the speaker does not know about her father, such as “a man in black” reveals that her father is a mysterious figure to her by how she does not remember detail about her father since he died when she was very young. By the word “black” being left out of stanza 12 which is about when her father died this reveals that her father once meant a lot to her and how she once loved him. The alliteration “a cleft in your chin” in the speakers picture of her father creates an emphasis on the imagery of the father, this emphasises that she believes that her father is a devil because devils have a cleft on their chin. This relates to the poet, Sylvia Plath whose father and husband has a cleft on the chin revealing that she felt an antipathy towards both of them and that she married her husband because he was like her father, as shown by the other uses of imagery as well. The alliteration also adds to the poem being like a charm, by how it adds a rhythmic tone to the poem which is like warding off the devil. Literary critic, Guinevara A. Nance and Judith P. Jones says that, The rhyme in stanza one and two adds to this chant that the speaker is cleansing themself of the image of their father. For example, there is rhyme at the end of each line (on the suspensive pauses) such as ‘no’, ‘who’, ‘two’ and ‘you’, this adds an empowering element to the stanza that the speaker is growing in strength by exorcising her father from her mind. There is a ritualistic feel to it and the speaker is shown to be in control by the structural use of syntax by how each stanza has seven lines. This also draws the stanza’s together into a

chant with different imagery that combine to show the speakers hatred towards her father, which has an emphasising effect. As well as this, the rhyme has child connotations of naivety and simplicity by the use of child language such as “daddy” to show that her father has the domineering role over her. Although, this is also sinister by appearing as a chant like a curse by how the childish rhythm acts almost as protection for the speaker. However, this is also feminine rhyme by how the rhyme are unstressed sounds, especially in stanza 11, which makes the female speaker appear weak compared to her domineering father. The emotive language of “bit my pretty red heart in two,” emphasises the mental pain of when her father died due to how much she loved him. There is the use of feminist language of ‘pretty’ which makes the speaker seem weak compared to her father in comparison with the contrast of ‘bit’ and ‘pretty’, which makes her father appear dominating over the speaker. There is an effect on a variation in syntax to emphasise certain confrontational imagery. For example, in stanza 12 the stanza consists of end stopped lines apart from “at twenty I tried to die/And get back, back, back to you,” which draws the reader's attention to how the speaker tried to kill herself out of grief of her father dying. The repetition of “back” creates a flashback feeling but also it emphasises that her father is far away in heaven that she cannot meet him unless she dies. The speaker shows that she recognises that her father is dead, that she will be able to know him and that she should forget him, she has made a negative image of him. This is shown by the extended metaphor of, “the black telephone's off at the root, / The voices just can’t worm through.” This has imagery of the dads graveyard with the worms, like actual worms in the soil, and how her voice is trying to reach her father who is deep in the ground. This reveals that she does not want to think of her father anymore and that she has cleansed herself of him. The “black” telephone has negative connotations of evilness and depression which symbolize that the speaker has finally forgotten and moved on from her father. This is very strong visual imagery used by Plath to reveal that her father is in the grave so she has finally come to terms with that, so the speaker is cleansed and purified. This is shown by the metaphor, “off at the root” which has imagery that the speaker has finally stopped “ringing her father”, that she has ‘hanged the call up’ and that she will no longer obsess over her dead father. This also means that the voices, of her father in her mind, can no longer affect her because she won’t listen. Robert Phillips believes that this has a wider content that Plath poem "Daddy" is a poem of total rejection. When she writes that "the black telephone’s off at the root," she is turning her back on the modern world as well. Such rejection of family and society leads to that final rejection, that of the Self. Her suicide is everywhere predicted.” He also continues to say, “Her earlier terror at death, thus, becomes a romance with it,” so that Plath is romanticising death and she is reflecting her own life through the speaker of an urging for death to solve her issues. However, the speaker decides to move on at the end of the poem victoriously there is still what M. L. Rosenthal describes in Plath’s poetry a "yearnings toward that condition [of suicide and depression]." (“The Dark Tunnel: A Readings of Sylvia Plath” Modern Poetry Studies.) The use of personal pronoun of the speaker addressing her father is very emotive, it is like a rant and this creates an angry tone of the speaker towards her father. The use of personal pronouns, like ‘I’, this creates vulnerability in the speaker revealing that her father to a

significant extent negative impacted her state of mind.

There is allusion to marriage vows when the speaker says, “And I said I do, I do.” This reveals that the “model” the speaker made of her father was her husband who she married and who became her “substitute” father. In the poem Plath successfully uses consonance to add a depressing angry tone with the harsh tones. For example, Plath, in stanza 12 uses the harsh consonant sounds of ‘t’ which is jarring, “At twenty I tried to die” this is to emphasise the seriousness of the speaker's statement in how she tried to kill herself. However, Plath seems to romanticise death by how she uses a euphemism “tried to die” instead of “suicide” as well as the feminine rhyme of “you” and “do’ which creates a lyrical romanticised tone. This reveals the speakers still has a unstable sense of mind. The use of the consansance and plosives of ‘k’ in “back, back, back to you” creates a choking sense in the speaker revealing the pain that the speaker suffered and how it brings back depressing memories. This creates an angry tone There seems to be a Electra Complex sense in “bit my pretty red heart in two,” this is partly due to the half rhyme of “bit and “heart” and the visual imagery of “red heart” which has romantic connotations. The speaker seems to be very possessive of her father and she treats him like a partner not a father. There is a use of juxtaposition and oxymoron of, “So daddy, I’m finally through,” which creates contrasting imagery. For example, daddy has positive connotations of affection and love. However, when the speaker says to her dad that she is “through” with him this creates conflicting images, this could be sarcasm. The speaker states to her daddy that “I made a model of you”. This suggests that the speaker married someone like her father out of admiration, or the Electra Complex, how she craved her father so she created a substitute father in her husband. She is shown to crave violence and this creates a vulnerableness in the speaker, showing the typical female weak protagonist. Whereas, the literacy critic Guinevara A. Nance and Judith P. Jones claim that, “In "Daddy," it is the model of the father that the persona destroys; and the solution suggested in the making of the model seems to occur as a consequence of its association with the speaker's own reconstruction after her attempted suicide, when she is "stuck . . . together with glue. " Her remodeling, described in a way that recalls the assembling of a collage, seems to be the associative stimulus for the idea of constructing the model through which to effect her dispossession. It is this model, a fabricated representation of a distorted vision of the father—a patchwork mental impression of him—that she seeks to destroy.” In a “voodoo” way the speaker starts to exorcise herself of her father. This is open to interpretation because Charles Molesworth also says that this could mean that, “And yet the opening premise itself ("I made a model of you") implies the possibility that she has merely imagined him [her father] this way, or else made him this way by her will to respond only to this [violent] element in him; and thereby has, in a sense, destroyed him, or at least the relationship” to have a feminist freedom.

There is an allusion to Nazi and a use of Nazi imagery for example, “a man in black with a

Meinkampf look” which is an allusion to Hitler, who wrote a well-known autobiography called ‘Meinkampf,’ he was a violent fascist who killed millions of Jewish people. So this is effective of Plath because this reveals that both her father and her husband were negative people in her life who were hurt her. She says that she loves authoritarian men. There is a juxtaposition and a metaphor used by Plath when the speaker says, “And a lack of the rack and the screw.” A rack and a screw were torture devices used in World War Two, which fits the Nazi World War Two theme, but also this symbolizes that the speaker is drawn to violence.

The poet leaves the poem to interpretation. Either she had gotten “through with her father” or she was “through with her father.” I believe that the speaker was through with her father.

Literacy Lens A literacy lens can apply to “Daddy”, especially the feminist lense due to the speakers subservient relationship with both her father and her husband. The speaker highlights the patriarchal male dominated society that she is living in by expressing her hatred towards her “daddy” and thus how she abhorred the domineering society she lived in. In stanza eleven the speaker states “you stand at the blackboard, daddy,” this reveals that her dad had the dominant role in their relationship by how teachers have connotations of control and power. The use of the word “black” in “blackboard” creates negative imagery in this sentence emphasising to the reader that the image is negative because the father is domineering over the speaker. The use of the emotive language “devil” reveals how the speaker feels subservient to her father and how she has the weak position. Her father is an allegorical symbol of men in society and how they have a dominating role over women. “And I said, I do, I do,” this has an ominous feeling to it since it is a short end stopped sentence revealing how women can be trapped in marriage. This poem was written after the poet had discovered that her husband, Ted Hughes, had an affair, so Plath would have felt especially cynical about marriage and this is also a confessional allusion towards that by how she married someone else who hurt her, which makes her appear as a weak female protagonist. This was especially since the poem was written in 1962, in a time when women were expected to be the house keepers and they had female gender roles of being subservient to men as the speaker is portrayed to be. The use of the Nazi imagery of a “man in black with a Meinkampf look,” conveys that her father and men in her society have control over women which has negative connotations due to the repetition of “black” in relation to her father. Hence, women are portrayed as the victim because Nazi’s were dominnering and they were symbols of male domination. The metaphor, “And a love of the rack and the screw,” reveal that some women love men dominating them and they love the violence of men. The emotive word of ‘love’ is used as a juxtaposition contrast to the torture methods of the “rack and the screw” to show the reader the warped society of how men controlled women and how women let them. This can also relate to the poet Plath’s relationship with Ted Hughes and how they had a violent tumultuous love which was not healthy for P...