Daddy Analysis

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time ----
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You ----

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

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.

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

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.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagersnever liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

.: :.

I have to write an essay on how plath uses the nazi/jew symbolism to discuss gender issues. This is gibberish to me. Can someone point me in the right direction?

| Posted on 2010-01-31 | by a guest

.: :.

I only have time for a very bried analysis and i will concerntrate on themes and metaphores.
Colour is very important to Plath as you see reading through her poetry, another good poem for colour would be "The Applicant". The colour black often represents oppression and constraint which seems fitting then, to be used in conjunction with the shoe in which she has lived, as this could refer to an opressive society as it was during the time of Nazi rule, it could also refer to her relatiobship with her father who she describes as fascist, modern forms of fascism of course being very much constraining. It is also used when talking about the telephone which is "off at the root", implying a voicelessness "The voices just can't worm through". The persona earlier in the poem feels an almost voicelessness, certainly an inability to speak "the tongue stuck in my jaw". Perhaps the black telephone cut off at the root is symbolising that the oppressive nature of the fathers voice, due to his death, can no longer be heard, however i wouldn't directly link the black telephone to death as white is often representative of death for Plath.
The post apocolyptic imagery of body parts strewn throughout the poem again seems to fit well as Plath deals with the topic of Nazism, not only do the body parts lend them selves fittingly to the theme of constraint "black shoe\ In which i have lived like a foot" but it also recreates the images we all have of bodies piled at concerntration camps and the collections of glasses, gold teeth and hair collected at such places. Plath's writings are definately not for the faint hearted.
I believe the topic of her father is quite an obvious one and so don't feel any need to discuss it, i do however think it's genius how through describing the relationship with her father, she manages to engage such topics as genocide, freedom of speech "I could hardly speak" which of course was true for the jews, and ties together (without saying the two were equally as terrible in a real sense) her constraint with that of Nazi Germany.
A brilliant poem.

| Posted on 2010-01-28 | by a guest

.: :.

I find the lines "So daddy, I'm finally through. The black telephone's off at the root, The voices just can't worm through." very powerfull. They convey that yes, she was possessed, but not now. She has cut herself off, the voices cant worm their way up the old fashioned spiraled telephone cable into her head anymore.

| Posted on 2010-01-27 | by a guest

.: :.

thanks for the hlp every one! im also doing an english assignment and found a few of these very helpful! thanks again!

| Posted on 2010-01-20 | by a guest

.: :.

Just had a teacher tell us that the Nazi references in Daddy are a metaphor for womens' rights. Huh? Seems wrong to equate genocide with womens' rights.

| Posted on 2010-01-12 | by a guest

.: :.

Poor and white meaning what? How do you analyse that? Im doing an essay for english and I'm clueless on that phrase?

| Posted on 2010-01-12 | by a guest

.: :.

This site was really helpfull,im doing a report on sylvia,and wanted to read this poem because EVERY source talked about it.thanks for putting this up

| Posted on 2009-12-09 | by a guest

.: :.

Plath expresses the angst of "the lost generation"{g.STEIN} as well as the lack of parental directions in a subtle way in several other poems , of which mention must be made of "The Moon and the Yew Tree" . The suffering and the panorama of disaster that this generation visualised in form of the two wars reminds of what the chorus said in "Oedipus":"call no man fortunate that is not dead,the dead are free from pain"

| Posted on 2009-11-27 | by a guest

.: :.

Just a quick note- I think it's very important to remember to distinguish between germans and nazi's...There was an entire generation of German students in the 1960's who had a conflict with their parent generation. This generation of students was known as the '68ers', and they were often very angered at the fact that resolution and closure to Germany's nazi past was never really addressed by their parent generation and was merely swept under the carpet. Perhaps Plath could be referring to this generation and the common sentiment at the time

| Posted on 2009-10-25 | by a guest

.: :.

Just a quick note- I think it's very important to remember to distinguish between germans and nazi's...There was an entire generation of German students in the 1960's who had a conflict with their parent generation. This generation of students was known as the '68ers', and they were often very angered at the fact that resolution and closure to Germany's nazi past was never really addressed by their parent generation and was merely swept under the carpet. Perhaps Plath could be referring to this generation and the common sentiment at the time

| Posted on 2009-10-24 | by a guest

.: :.

Sylvia Plath can really let you feel all her emotions even if you don't really understand what she is saying. I fell like sticking my head inside an oven when i read some of her great poems.

| Posted on 2009-10-23 | by a guest

.: :.

thanks because of this site, i came from malaysia and i am a astudent. i study bout the poem and this site help me lots. thank you.

| Posted on 2009-09-12 | by a guest

.: :.

THis was so helpful. im currently studying the HSC and this information was very benificial! :) thanks so much!

| Posted on 2009-09-07 | by a guest

.: :.

Although dark and sad, some have suggested that the last line of the poem marks some sort of resolve as she strongly concludes; “daddy…im through”. I think that its often daunting and depressing reading Plath’s poetry, but the pure brilliant of these beautifully ugly images in the poem, concluding with these perfectly placed lines, represents a resolve of the conflicts between different images throughout the poem. But as for the resolving of the real conflicts in her life, it is near on impossible that if someone was unable to stop grieving after 20 years, how can a poem written about it all, suddenly cure you?! And the fact that she killed herself is also a bit of give away that she didn’t resolve her issues with her depression and the ghosts of her past.

| Posted on 2009-04-08 | by a guest

.: :.

In daddy plath wrote one of the very few poems I know in any language to come near the last horror. It achieved the clasic act of generalizing translating a private intolerable hurt into a code of plain statement, of instantaneously public image which concern us all.
I'm actually happy that this site exist..

| Posted on 2009-04-06 | by a guest

.: :.

Anyone who knows anythinhg about hitler knows about Auschwitz, and the levels of cruelty the germans allowed themselves to reach. For Sylvia to use this image in a poem about her father, is absurd. Showing her anger/hate for her father and the impact he had in her life.

| Posted on 2009-04-02 | by a guest

.: :.

As a student, I believe that using say umm censored words are uncalled for. We should only say things about Plath and her poetry. Please try to keep the negativity away from her beautiful poems. Thank you for your time. And as always, have a day.

| Posted on 2009-04-02 | by a guest

.: :.

In "Daddy", Sylvia Plath shows intense emotions towards the relationships she had with her late father and husband. The character in this poem is Plath herself and it spans across a series of decades. It starts when Plath loses her father at a very young age, "You died before I had time- " (7), at a time when Plath still loved her father unconditionally. She tries to replace her father with her husband, a man who is identical in personality and habit. Over the years, as Plath becomes older and wiser, she sees these men for their true colors. She begins to illustrate feelings of anger and resentment towards them through use of vivid metaphor, imagery, and tone.
The recurrent use of the words 'shoes' and 'feet' in this poem are strong metaphors that take on different meaning as the poem proceeds. In lines two and three, "you do not do any more, black shoe in which I have lived like a foot", Plath compares herself to a foot living in a shoe, the shoe being her father. The shoe protects the foot and keeps it warm but, like a double edged sword, also traps and smothers the foot. Later in the poem the shoe is called a 'boot' (49) when the father is found to be a Nazi.
In the sixth and seventh stanzas Plath describes her father as a Nazi, "I thought every German was you" (29). She calls her father a Pollack and says she is the jew ("I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew" 34-35). Plath never had the chance to embrace her nationality, and felt resentment towards this separation from her father. She uses 'barb wire' metaphor to illustrate this, explaining how she never felt she could talk to him, that she could hardly speak. In the ninth stanza Plath compares her father to Hitler, "your neat mustache and your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man" (43). Plath says that her father was not God but a swastika, that she has always been scared of him, and she felt like she was being sent away from him, "Chuffing me off like a Jew" (32). In lines 53 and 54 Plath not only compares her dad to Hitler but to the devil as well.
In the twelfth stanza, and the three that follow that (lines 56 through 85), the poem takes a different direction and splits into a whole other story. Ten years after her fathers death Plath is still in mourning and tries to physically replace his presence in her life. She married a man who had the same look and traits as her father, "I made a model of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look and a love of the rack and screw. And I said I do, I do" (74-77). Plath uses imagery to describe her husband as a 'vampire' an image or reflection of her father, a weaker or paler version of him who still haunts her long after his death. She again uses imagery when saying that this vampire drank her blood for seven years- Plaths marriage of seven years had drained her of life and energy. He was a brute force that oppressed Plath and hurt her, just like her father, and she in turn killed him.
The tone of this poem is one of child-like outrage and adult anger. This is showed by the repetitive use of the word 'daddy' and doubling up lines like "You do not do, you do not do" (1), and "Daddy, daddy" (90). As a child she adores her father but is also a bit frightened by him. I don't think it was until Plath entered her marriage, and realized the connection between her husband and father, that she was able to see her father for what he truly was. For as Plath grows older she begins to resent who he was to her, and the tone changes from a child's to that of a fiercer woman, strong with attitude. She states in the last three stanzas, "So daddy, I'm finally through" (77) and again in the last line, "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" (90). It seems as though, at the end of the poem, Plath was finally able to resolve her conflict with herself and her father.
by ER

| Posted on 2009-03-18 | by a guest

.: :.

I feel that the use of the comparison between her father and Hitler, and Sylvia as a Jew is quite enthralling. She uses this comparison to show that she and her father are complete opposites. She is detached from her Polish/German heritage and finds herself resenting her father for that very fact.
Sylvia's use of the line, "If I've killed one man, I've killed two--" (line 71) refers to her father and husband as one entity. She tried replacing her father with her husband and was at a loss when it did not work.
p.s. Kurt we're going to call you. :D
Melty and Coop

| Posted on 2008-11-07 | by a guest

.: :.

This Poem shows she has issues with her father and how the reflected her life. The poem mainly is about the death and how she has coped with the death and how he has haunted her but towards the end she can take power of her memories and be able to control them. The last line tells us she has finally reached her version of freedom.

| Posted on 2008-09-21 | by a guest

.: :.

Incorrect. She was 8 when her father past away not ten.

| Posted on 2008-08-04 | by a guest

.: :.

I am a student at Oxford and I believe not Sylvia Plath should be torn to shreds but rather Kurt should be split in two by a negro's appendage.
Regards. Richard Head

| Posted on 2008-08-04 | by a guest

.: Analysis :.

Sylvia Plath, one of, if not the best confessional poet ever.
Her imagery is of decay and rotting. Where she says about 'ghastly statue with one grey toe' talks about her father a she ultimately had to cut off his foot due to gangreme which explains her use of grey. Did she feel like she was just cut off when he died? Thrown away?
There is lots on this poem. I just can't be bothered to go into it right now...

| Posted on 2008-05-02 | by a guest

.: i really need to know :.

I really need to know who wrote the anylisis because im going to use a scentence for an essay but i need to give credit to that person. please tell me the name..

| Posted on 2008-04-23 | by a guest

.: :.

my English class is studying Sylvia Plath's work and I found this site to be very useful. Thank you for posting :)

| Posted on 2008-03-11 | by a guest

.: Jewish imagrey :.

This poem is exellent! The use of the Jews as figures for persecution is really relevant as Sylvias mother and father were Germans.

| Posted on 2008-02-18 | by a guest

.: Analysis :.

Sylvia Plath uses her poem, “Daddy”, to express intense emotions towards her father’s life and death and her disastrous relationship with her husband. The speaker in this poem is Sylvia Plath who has lost her father at age ten, at a time when she still adored him unconditionally. Then she gradually realizes the oppressing dominance of her father, and compares him to a Nazi, a devil, and a vampire. Later, the conflict of this relationship continues with her husband which led to a short and painful marriage. In “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath, the author illustrates her feelings of anger and resentment towards her father and husband along with being oppressed for most of her life through her poetic devices of vivid metaphor, imagery, rhyme, tone, and simile.

Metaphor plays a major role in this poem because strong metaphors are conveyed throughout the poem though shoes and feet are a recurrent image in this poem; they take on different nuances of meaning as the poem proceeds. In line two, the speaker compares herself to a foot that “lives” in a shoe, the shoe is her father. Analyzing this metaphor on an abstract level is much less helpful than visualizing it. Then the metaphor evokes various helpful associations: Commonly, a shoe protects the foot and keeps it warm, in this poem. However, the shoe is a trap, smothering the foot. The adjective “black” suggests the idea of death, and since the shoe is fitting tightly around the foot, one might think of a corpse in a coffin. Plath thus feels at the same time protected and smothered by her father. Later, the black shoe emerges as a military “boot” (line 49) when the father is called a Nazi.

The image of the poem helps the reader to relate to Plath’s harsh life. An example of this is when the devil is introduced with “A cleft in your chin instead of your foot/But no less a devil for that”. (53-54). Again there is the reference to the foot, this one being suspicious just like the origins of the father. The cleft in the foot, the devil’s hooves, is compared to the cleft in the father’s chin. This is developed further with the images of the father and the husband who is like the father being a “vampire” (72)—a bloodsucking zombie who still haunts her long after his death. Likewise, Plath describes how her life was being drained away as the result of a marriage, similar to that of how a vampire drinks the blood of its victims.

The poem seems to have an irregularity in rhyme. “Daddy” is not a free flowing poem because it is able to split it up into three separate parts. The rhyming of the ‘oo’ sound is evident throughout the poem. However, there is no regular pattern of which lines rhyme. These irregularities reinforce the life that Plath lived without her father, one that could speak at happiness and then plummet to sadness in a short period of time. Also the poem is written in stanzas of five short lines. These lines are like a Mike Tyson jab, short but extremely powerful as an example of this, “If I’ve killed one men I’ve killed two—The vampire who said he was you.” (75) The powerful imagery of these lines overpowers any of the rhyme scheme.

The tone of this poem is an adult engulfed in outrage. This outrage, at times, slips into the sobs of a child. This is evident by Plath’s continued use of the word daddy and the childlike repetition “You do not do, you do not do” (1) and “Daddy, daddy, you [censored]” (80). Fear from her childhood moves her in directions that will take her far from herself. She also brings us starkly into the world of a child’s fear. She uses words that sound like the words of a child staring out at behind “a barb wire snare” (26) saying “I have always been scared of you.” (41) The tone then changes toward the end of the poem from fear of a child to a strong woman. She states, “So daddy, I’m finally through.”(73) “And I knew what to do.” (63) And in the last two stanzas demonstrates an attitude of power. Plath has overcome her powers; she has killed all the self-doubt inside of her, and she is illustrating how she now has power over the memories of her father. She is confident enough to speak directly to her adversary. The tone in these lines also gives more power to the poem. “Daddy, daddy, you [censored]” (80) has more effect on an audience than “Daddy was a [censored]”.

In the poem Plath uses several similes in the seventh stanza. “An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I begin to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew.” (31-35) The similes within this stanza position the reader to see the great degree of suffering the speaker went through, as it is compared to the torment and anguish millions went through during World War II and in turn, sympathy is drawn from the reader as everyone deserves to grow up with two living parents. When Plath describes her father is like Hitler. “I have always been scared of you, with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue.”(41-44) By comparing her father to Hitler, Plath crease a parallel in that Hitler was responsible for the lives of so many Jews. In parallel, her father is like Hitler and she is like Jew.

“Daddy” is a negative, dark poem. However, at the conclusion of the poem it is clear that Plath was able to resolve her conflicts. She has also been able to evoke great amount of power within the poem to the readers. One can see this from her use of vivid metaphor, imagery, rhyme, tone, and simile as major poetic devices. She finishes the poem with a powerful, “Daddy, daddy, you [censored], I’m through.”(80) showing that she has finally reached freedom.


| Posted on 2007-10-30 | by a guest

.: :.

I agree Comepletely. Why do I have to be constantly
re-directed when looking for useful information?
If you don't have the content, don't advertise it or
send me somewhere else!!! That's why I use a F***ing
Search engine!!!

| Posted on 2007-05-08 | by a guest

.: bollocks :.

god damnit. I appreciate how you just have random-ass key words on your site so that someone whos actually searching for useful information has to come to a site like this and see that it was a waste of time. i hope a big cock rips your [censored] open. I enjoy the SNES roms link though,

Kurt. 813-988-8246

| Posted on 2007-03-26 | by a guest