Sylvia Plath used violent, disturbing and controversial imagery in her poem “Daddy” to describe her turbulent relationship and difficult times with her father. Plath’s work, including this poem, is well-known for its disturbing metaphor and playful alliteration. These contradictions and others in the work show the speaker’s inability to control her men relationships. Despite its feminist undertones, Plath fails to make any concrete assertions about equality between the sexes. Instead, “Daddy” is a commentary on Plath’s struggles with patriarchy, emotional abuse, and other issues. Plath supports this idea with the metaphor that she uses to describe herself as a Holocaust victim and her dad as a Nazi soldier. Plath’s symbolism of Nazism and her father shifts through the poem. This transitions from subtlety, to blatancy, to finally include her relationships and father, Ted Hughes. Many critics have discussed Plath’s World War II allusions and metaphors with respect to her personal relationships. This essay will focus on the Nazi imagery in “Daddy”, which asserts patriarchy as a form of fascism within society.
Plath used inductive reasoning in “Daddy” to provoke a discussion about patriarchal society that decimated her. Although the Holocaust metaphors in Plath’s book are harsh, their symbolism is sincere, which she seems to consider more important than political correctness. These powerful metaphors that she used in “Daddy” can be applied to all power trips, including a Fuhrer’s or father’s attempt to rule, are brutal and can have devastating and lasting effects. Plath’s past experiences with men inspired the poem to be candid about her feelings of disempowerment and pain. The contradictions aren’t just in the language. Each stanza focuses on Plath’s inner contradiction, the desire to hold onto versus the desire for freedom. Threety years after the death of her father, she still has much to talk about, but it is hard and difficult to communicate. Although “Daddy” is described as cold, fearsome, and controlling in the poem, the speaker admits, in a moment, that she used to pray for him to be recovered (Plath 14). Despite the differences between father and speaker, she still wants to connect with him, understand his thoughts, and get to know him. The audience is able to see the inability of our speaker to communicate with her father and God. Plath gives us only a vague description of her father. He is German-born, but Plath still doesn’t know his exact origins. Plath’s obsession may be due to her inability to understand why a deceased man can exert so much control over her.
“Ich…ich…ich,ich…ichichichichichichichichich” is the sixth stanza. This could mean that the speaker is afraid to speak in front of her father, or it could simply be a strengthening of her father’s German heritage. The line is paired with the next stanza suggests that Plath intended it to be an onomatopoeia. The repeated German words sound like a train if spoken aloud. This transitions into her first Holocaust remark: “An engines, an engines / Cuffing me off as a Jew”Plath, 31-32. The German is her father’s words. As her father’s victim, she uses the train as metaphor. “I started talking like a Jew,” she adds. She then says, “I think I might well be a Jew.” As she compares her father’s oppression to the Holocaust concentration camps (Plath 34-35). Because her father’s language is so oppressive and her mother’s oppression are so strong, the speaker begins to “talk as a Jew”, referring to a denial and defaulting to her father’s German language.
The speaker addresses her father’s Nazism directly, even though it was implied subtly in the previous stanzas. Again she talks about her fear of “you” / With you Luftwaffe, gobbledygoo. His association with the Nazis is what she seems direct by tying him to the Luftwaffe, Germany’s air force. She can make a mockery out of what the German sound like to foreigners by claiming that he was “gobbledygoo”. It is obvious that her father speaking German was a frightening experience for her. Even after his death, she still finds it difficult to comprehend. Plath provides a description of her father for the first time. Plath’s father now looks like Hitler’s idealized bright-blue eyes and mustache. As a response to his cruelty, this verse ends with “O You, du”, an English translation.
The speaker now returns to her earlier sigh of “O You”, but she also recalls the idea that her father was like God to her. Now, he appears to her as “Not God but an swastika.” His blackness blocks out the sky (Plath 46). This leads to the most controversial and discussed line from the poem, “Every woman adores the Fascist,” which Plath is making her first claim about women other than herself. This begs the question, did she choose oppression? I believe this stanza is the first glimpse of a male newcomer. Plath may be referring her troubled marriage to Ted Hughes. Although her tone is somewhat sarcastic, it is also self-deprecating. It seems she is making a statement about all women when she says “everyone.” Perhaps she is becoming more than a victim. As she did in the poem’s beginning, she seems to be asking herself if she and women generally want to be dominated. The poem’s title can further reinforce this idea. “Daddy,” a term of affection, is often used to refer to “father” or “dad” but the title of the poem implies that the speaker still feels close to her father despite the claims she makes throughout the work. The speaker’s relationship of fear and dependence with men can be interpreted as metaphor to question society’s desire for traditionalism and structure.
Plath once more directs attention back towards the speaker when Plath mentions that her “pretty pink heart” was broken in two by Plath (Plath, 56). These lines show the contrast between the speaker and the father. The speaker is beautiful, red and victimized, while her father is evil and large. Her father, whom she calls the devil, broke her heart in stanza 11. She admits that she tried to kill herself at twenty (Plath, 55-58). She claims that she tried to commit suicide while she was in college. / I believed even the bones would work” (Plath. 59-60). This line is a contradiction in itself and shows how disturbed the speaker is about her father’s death. Despite what he did for her, she finds it difficult to accept the loss. She was physically healed after her suicide attempt failed, but she was still very troubled mentally (Plath, 62). The speaker laughs and says that she “made a picture” of her father. Plath starts to discuss her painful and difficult marriage to Ted Hughes. She said, “I knew what to do.” I made you a model / A man wearing black with a Meinkampf appearance” (Plath 63-65). It seems that the speaker is mocking her choice of husband. Similar to her statement, “Every man adores Fascists,” the speaker observes how Hughes, in a way allowed trouble back into her life.
Because she now has the father model, she no longer needs him. She says “So daddy,” which is a reference to her real father. Ironically, “Daddy”, who has been dead for thirty-years, is now the speaker letting go of her obsession with him. She connects her husband and father again in the fifteenth stanza. The poem’s only two men are her father and her “model,” so it makes sense that she “killed” them both. Her husband is shown as a “vampire,” which is a dark image. This is also the first time that he is seen as an image apart from her father. She tells her father to “lieback” and she turns her focus back to her husband. She tells him, “There’s a stake within your fat black soul” (Plath.76): The description of his heart as evil or black is correct here. This image contrasts with the one of her heart (Plath 56). The speaker used “Daddy” four times before line 80. This does not include the title. It seems that she is preparing herself for her finale by repeatedly repeating “Daddy”. Although the speaker tried many ways to criticize her father (calling him Hitler, Nazis, the devil and a Vampire), she ended up using the only word that denied him authority and eventually patriarchy.
