Sylvia Plath's Daddy Poem
Sense of Victimhood Portrayed in Sylvia Plath’s Daddy Dr. Tarit Agrawal. Asst. Prof., Department of English, Govt. Degree College, Pulwara, Bar, Lalitpur, Jhansi. Email: rajagrawal20155@gmail.com Mob. No. 8318336131 Abstract Sylvia Plath always felt like a victim to whomever men she encountered in her life whether it was her father, her husband or the male-dominated literary firmament. Most of her poems can be described as a kind of response to these brutal feelings of victimization. Daddy is an unusual poem by Sylvia Plath. The poet feels that her father had German features while her mother was Jewish. The father of the poet is a Nazi. Though he died when the poet was hardly a child, his peculiar image enters her mind. In this poem, …show more content…
It developed in her a ‘masculine protest’ and filled in her sadism and destructiveness. Her poetry reflects ‘a seductive nihilism in contemporary culture that is a barrier to the discovery of one’s full humanness – the first step towards trying to find a meaning in life. It is reflected in the nihilism of her poetry and also in her choice of suicide as an evasive measure, a dodge, from discovering her full humanness. Well, her famous poem entitled Daddy categorically depicts her relationship with her father. Even the opening lines of the poem invoke those cultural or social injunctions or prescriptions against which the conduct or behaviour of the persons in the poem is measured at both the individual and the social levels. The speaker (the poetess) shows her resentment for her father. The speaker tells her father that he can no linger satisfy her physical requirements. She calls her father ‘Black Shoe’. She says that for the last thirty years, she has lived a miserable life and without much vitality, vigour and luster. She has lived with her and she has felt almost crushed in the black shoe which has made it difficult for her to breathe or sneeze. It is because of the inhibitions, culturally and socially imposed upon her that she has considered herself poor and white. To quote a few
Comparing Poems 'Those Winder Sundays And' The Possessive
932 Words | 4 Pageshe explains how his father’s motive for loving him and raising becomes a challenge for the son to accept, because of his adolescent behavior and likewise in Sharon Old’s poem “The Possessive” the narrator would describe how uncomfortable she felt when she her daughter grow up too fast. Both poems use a narrative that suggest that there are
Examples Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack
636 Words | 3 Pagesthroughout her life she discovered how her skin tone enabled her to maneuver situations in life a lot easier than she should be able to. White Privilege is synonymous to dominance. it correlates to an unearned strength and unearned control/power. Unearned power hearkens back to domination and one exerted superiority over another. white privilege can both intentionally or unintentionally oppress those who do not have it.
Analysis Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack
759 Words | 4 PagesShe understood that while she was under the dominance of white men, she had predominance over ladies of another ethnic background, such as women of color. White privilege is seen as an unacknowledged and standard norm of the majority, however it is within this “unseen norm” that outlines the racial divides of this country. From
A Class Apart: A Mexican American Civil Rights Story
723 Words | 3 PagesAs she got older, she started to be ashamed of her own race. Most of her friends were Caucasian, but she never
How It Feels To Be Colored Me Essay
697 Words | 3 PagesHer sense of race is affected by the environment she is in, in some places she doesn’t feel “colored”, and so she does not let it hinder her. She tries to get readers to see race and ethnicity as fluid and dynamic as opposed to static and rigid. She wants readers to
Sacrifice In Bruce Dawe's 'Drifters'
1833 Words | 8 PagesThe conflicting interests of the mother and the father result in a situation where one must make a sacrifice in order to preserve the connection in the family. The flat depressed tone of the poem reflects the mother’s unhappiness and frustration about having to constantly
Feminism In Louise Halfe's Body Politics
459 Words | 2 PagesThis becomes evident in a lack of information about the type of society, and the reader therefore lacks a complete understanding of how the women are oppressed. As a whole, this poem sets forth the idea that female gender is fluid, and asks its readers to questions what it means to be a woman in a male dominant
Abject In Patience Agbabi's About Face
1329 Words | 6 Pages4. Abject in “About Face” Similarly to the crucial aspects above, the poem “About Face” represents some issues already mentioned. The poem “About Face”, by Patience Agbabi is a poetic depiction of the mythological painting of the goddess of the hunt Diana and a hunter Actaeon. First of all, the poem has an interesting structure and way of representing and conveying its meaning.
Literary Analysis Of Elizabeth Bishop's 'Exchanging Hats'
1809 Words | 8 PagesThe different key features also plays an important role for example the tone that is being formed by the lyrical voice that can be seen as a nephew or niece. This specific poem is also seen as an exposition of what Judith Butler will call a ‘gender trouble’ and it consist of an ABBA rhyming pattern that makes the reading of the poem better to understand. The poem emphasizes feminist, gender and queer theories that explains the life of the past and modern women and how they are made to see the world they are supposed to live in. The main theories that will be discussed in this poem will be described while analyzing the poem and this will make the poem and the theories clear to the reader. Different principals of the Feminist Theory.
Analysis Of The Fury Of Overshoes
1433 Words | 6 PagesThe reader can feel her great depression through the poem. In addition, in order to handle her problems, under the guidance of her psychiatrist, she wrote poetry as her therapy. The form of her poem, which was not organized, could be explained through this fact. It looked like she wrote her thoughts quickly. One thought chased another thought.
Compare And Contrast Sylvia Plath And My Papa's Waltz
846 Words | 4 PagesComparing and contrasting Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”, one finds the two poems are similar with their themes of abuse, yet contrasting with how the themes are portrayed. Furthermore, the speaker 's feelings toward their fathers’ in each poem contrast. One speaker was hurt by the father and the other speaker was indifferent about how he was treated by his father. The fathers’ feelings toward the children are also different despite how each treated the child. Both poems accurately portray the parent-child relationships within an abusive home, even if they have different
Traumatic Events In Sylvia Plath's Life
2095 Words | 9 PagesIt inspired her to write some of her most famous poems, one being called “Daddy.” She describes it as “an awful little allegory, in which the speaker of the poem felt compelled to act out” (Brown and Taylor 1). His death plants a fear of abandonment
Imagery And Allusion In Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy'
709 Words | 3 PagesEven when she realized the reality of her father, she still tries to go back to him. In lines 58-61 “At twenty I tried to die…………… /And they stuck me together with glue” Plath uses imagery to show that even as bad as Hitler, she will always look up to her
Feminism In Sylvia Plath's Poetry
922 Words | 4 PagesSylvia Plath is considered to be one of the most significant female poets known not only to Americans but also to the whole world. Her death in 1963, followed by an unfortunate and short life did not end her input and influence inliterature, she became an icon to the female literary society. Sylvia's outstanding style of writing and themes which she portrayed in her works such as death, seeking for an identity or oppression on women in a patriarchal society began the feminist movementin America and changed the role of women. This topic is of a great importance because they way that Sylvia Plath was expressing her feelings and showing her negative view on a patriarchal society and oppression on women was a giant leap in the world of a women's liberation movement.
Critical Analysis Of A Room Of One's Own By Virginia Woolf
1248 Words | 5 PagesOne of the most significant works of feminist literary criticism, Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One`s Own”, explores both historical and contemporary literature written by women. Spending a day in the British Library, the narrator is disappointed that there are not enough books written by or even about women. Motivated by this lack of women’s literature and data about their lives, she decides to use her imagination and come up with her own characters and stories. After creating a tragic, but extraordinary gifted figure of Shakespeare’s sister and reflecting on the works of crucial 19th century women authors, the narrator moves on to the books by her contemporaries. So far, women were deprived of their own literary history, but now this heritage is starting to appear.
More about Sylvia Plath's Daddy Poem
Comparing Poems 'Those Winder Sundays And' The Possessive
932 Words | 4 PagesExamples Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack
636 Words | 3 PagesAnalysis Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack
759 Words | 4 PagesA Class Apart: A Mexican American Civil Rights Story
723 Words | 3 PagesHow It Feels To Be Colored Me Essay
697 Words | 3 PagesSacrifice In Bruce Dawe's 'Drifters'
1833 Words | 8 PagesFeminism In Louise Halfe's Body Politics
459 Words | 2 PagesAbject In Patience Agbabi's About Face
1329 Words | 6 PagesLiterary Analysis Of Elizabeth Bishop's 'Exchanging Hats'
1809 Words | 8 PagesAnalysis Of The Fury Of Overshoes
1433 Words | 6 PagesCompare And Contrast Sylvia Plath And My Papa's Waltz
846 Words | 4 PagesTraumatic Events In Sylvia Plath's Life
2095 Words | 9 PagesImagery And Allusion In Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy'
709 Words | 3 PagesFeminism In Sylvia Plath's Poetry
922 Words | 4 PagesCritical Analysis Of A Room Of One's Own By Virginia Woolf
1248 Words | 5 Pages