Sylvia Plath was an admired American poet during the 20th century, known for her confessional poems. Plath's poems had a common theme of morality and death. Plath excelled as a child and won many scholarships and contests, but faced difficulties in her home life after her father died. These difficulties affected Plath's mental state and her work greatly. In Plath's poem, “Daddy”, readers can see how her relationship with her father and other life experiences influenced the topics and themes of her poetry. Sylvia Plath's father died days after her 8th birthday which would later become the topic of many of her poems and writings. Almost all of Plath's writings had a theme of nature or morality. Otto Plath's death caused Sylvia to suffer from
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Plath states “Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time, ” meaning that her father died before she could get to know him or literally kill him herself. Either way, her father dying left a bitterness in her heart that would influence the way she wrote and lived life. Plath uses similes, metaphors, and imagery to create a horrid image of her father which combines sins of men into one man. In “Daddy,” Plath creates an unrealistic picture of her father starting from God, moving to a nazi, then to “the vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year.” In the poem it says “I made a model of you” which shows that plath cannot get her father's image out of her head. This poem allows Plath to show her anger at her tyrannical father(Crowley). Plath also feels like her “daddy” figure has towered over her all her life and that she is imprisoned by it (Hobby). When Plath says “There's a stake in your fat black heart and the villagers never liked you” she means that she has finally killed his memory and she never liked him anyway. She also says “daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.” which shows her hatred for her father and his memory which she has finally gotten over. Her relationship with her father influenced her writing greatly because her hatred of men became the topic this
Plath states “Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time, ” meaning that her father died before she could get to know him or literally kill him herself. Either way, her father dying left a bitterness in her heart that would influence the way she wrote and lived life. Plath uses similes, metaphors, and imagery to create a horrid image of her father which combines sins of men into one man. In “Daddy,” Plath creates an unrealistic picture of her father starting from God, moving to a nazi, then to “the vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year.” In the poem it says “I made a model of you” which shows that plath cannot get her father's image out of her head. This poem allows Plath to show her anger at her tyrannical father(Crowley). Plath also feels like her “daddy” figure has towered over her all her life and that she is imprisoned by it (Hobby). When Plath says “There's a stake in your fat black heart and the villagers never liked you” she means that she has finally killed his memory and she never liked him anyway. She also says “daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.” which shows her hatred for her father and his memory which she has finally gotten over. Her relationship with her father influenced her writing greatly because her hatred of men became the topic this