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Michael Gonzalez
Professor Susan Lago
Journal 1
01/15/14
Daddy by Sylvia Plath
This poem was about the death of Plaths tormentor and her descriptions of it like if it
was her father. The interesting part of this poem is that she puts this man as her father figure as
if the man is at a higher position than Plath herself. She had felt defenseless at first, but the again
had such rage that wouldve killed the man. As for me, the emotional aspect of this poem was
very interesting because in the poem, Plath had such fear towards him and was definitely
intimidated by him when she had said, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Thats a little
extreme dont you think? How fear made her monitor every move. And then the mood soon
changes because in the next stanza she had said, Daddy I have had to kill you. You died before I
had the time. And with this, you see the rage inside of her.
When I continued to read, I started to see the setting of the poem and I saw that this was
around the time of the holocaust. I found out because it mentioned the death camp of Auschwitz
and she was describing herself as if she was a Jewish woman even though she wasnt because
she was comparing herself to a Jew. At this point the emotion I felt was anger and depressed and
if I were in her position, I wouldve been vengeful because she was being compared to another
nationality as well as being blamed for not just being like Daddy. As she explained it,
Chuffing me off like a Jew tells not only me but the reader that she was being treated like
scum. The emotional connection to this piece was very angry, sad, depressed for being oppressed
and especially vengeful. After that, she expressed her fears when she had said:
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I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, o you.
She explicitly described him with detail almost like a picture of this man is engraved into
her head. This stanza stood out to me because I actually pictured myself being with her, feeling
what she was feeling, even to just see him and have that man evoke those emotions out of you.
Towards the end of the poem Plath pretty much just went insane when she had said:
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.
Here she has even gotten to the extent of committing suicide.
There were many emotions involved in this poem, but some things I didnt understand
such as the part where she says, but they pulled me out of the sack, and they stuck me together
with glue. And then I knew what to do. I was confused there and I didnt know what they meant
there. As well as towards the end she mentions that at the age of ten they buried him but I
thought from the beginning, she had given a man that title Daddy because of the mans
authoritative influence in Plaths life but it seems to me that this man was there her whole life. I
didnt look online for someone elses point of view on the poem. I just wrote what I thought it
meant.
Citation:
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Plath, Sylvia. Daddy. Poets.org. Acadamy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2014.