WOMEN’S WRITING ASSIGNMENT – 1

3 rd YEAR ENGLISH HONOURS

Q. “Daddy , daddy, you bastard , I’m through”. Critically analyse Plath’s poem ‘Daddy’, in the context of

its final statement.

=>> “Daddy” was written by the American poet Sylvia Plath in 1962 and was published in
the volume –Ariel in 1965, two years after her tragic suicide. Sylvia Plath’s life was witness to ‘the
anxieties of the second world war ’, and was tied accordingly to ‘the economic depression of the 1930’s’.
. “Daddy” is a poem about a daughter- {the poet persona} coming in terms with her father , the effects of
his absence (sudden death) upon her and finally her liberation from debilitating effects of the
psychological power of her father upon her
As rightly said by Hans Robert Jauss that ‘The Title creates a horizon of expectations’,
Plath likewise sets the foreground of her poem through the title “Daddy” ,which is otherwise a term of
endearment, and love. However, here, Plath ,through the poet persona represents Daddy quite
contrastingly- as the repressive masculine embodiment of the patriarchy by associating him with “black
shoe” and “ghastly statue” , thereby suggesting the notion that women experienced vulnerability within
the very nexus of the private sphere of family . Thus she deconstructs the notion of daddy as a nurturing
figure
The language of the poem is not consistent. It is written in a ‘powerful nursery rhyme
rhythm’. Plath in the poem makes use of several devices such as broken sentences , repetition of words (
Daddy ,daddy you bastard), semantically incomplete sentences( which indicates her internal struggle and
the inability to articulate) –(Panzer-man Panzer-man, O You- ), powerful metaphors, lot of German words
(“Ach du”, ichh, “Meinkampf”, “Luftawaffe”) . Terry Eagleton recognizes “Plath’s use of language
within “Daddy”, which is incorporated with childish nursery rhymes, as making significant political
statements”.For e.g.- when the poet persona dismisses her daddy’s arguments of patriarchy and fascism as
simply “gobledygoo”(add in the footnote what it means ok?
Daddy is written in a mixed form. It is partly considered an elegy which is a public
articulation of mourning. Plath employs this form to deconstruct the male written elegies to articulate the
female loss and mourning. It’s difference is however marked since the poem doesn’t eulogise the male
figure( here, her father) after his death but on the contrary it appropriates the condemnation and the
sadistic vengeance of her repressive daddy .The line Daddy daddy you bastard resonates this
condemnation where she illegitimates herself from his identity by calling him ‘bastard’. The Poem have
been categorised as an excellent example of confessional poetry which historically(mid-20 th century)
Robert Lowell and bunch of female poets like Anne sexton, Adriene Rich had used to write powerful
poetries based on their real life tormenting individual experiences.. The autobiographical elements of
Plath’s life and her personal tones resonating her struggle also runs in her other seminal works- ‘Bell Jar”,
lady lazarus as well as in this poem in bits and pieces. The phrase- “one gray toe” is suggestive of Otto
Plath’s amputated leg in the poem( Sylvia Plath’s father ) since he was diagnosed with advanced diabetes
The subsequent line “I was ten when they buried you”, resonates the death of Otto Plath when Sylvia
Plath was only eight years old. Similarly, the line “At twenty I tried to die” is suggestive of Plath’s first
attempt of suicide at the age of twenty by overdosing on sleeping pills.
Furthermore, in the poem “Daddy” , Plath deconstructs the deep sense of conflict between
rage and desire of the poet persona against her Daddy who repressed her for 30 years in many
claustrophobic ways The poet persona through the imagery of the ‘black shoe’, and the metaphor of ‘foot’
makes the poignant comparison in the passive voice, where she declares that living under her Daddy is
like living with “black shoe. Consequently In the line- “Daddy I have had to kill you”, the poet persona is
perceived as manifesting her rage at her father ,who robbed her of her selfhood, , therefore demonstrates
the desire to kill him . Contrary to this rage, the line – “I used to pray to recover you” comments on the
poet persona’s ambivalent desire for the recovery of the father figure ,amidst all the hatred , fear that she
makes explicit in the poem.
Plath within the poem gives different figurations of the dominating male figure as father,
teacher, fascist, husband ,vampire. “You stand at the blackboard, Daddy”, here ,the father is described as
patriarchal pedagogue .The lines “I do, I do”, symbolic of the marriage vows refers to the husband, the
quasi father figure. The poet persona then describes the male figures at the end as bloodsucking vampire.
All these powerful imageries stands to signify the omnipresence of the patriarchy permeating through
multiple figures within the society and thereby the poet persona is establishing the reality of male father
figure as consumerist and authoritarian.

Plath also appropriates in the poem similes, metaphors of the Holocaust to offer a critique
of the fascist regime which represented the darkest string of humanity and also to draw stringently the
correlation between the debilitating effects of the ‘fascism’ and the systemic oppression of the
‘patriarchy’, which are both based on monologue and stifling the weak. Susan Gubar, writes, “ “Daddy”
the poem deploys all the regalia of the fascist fathers against those robbed of selfhood , citizenship and
language, for the speaker’s stuttering tongue is stuck” . Plath, describes poet persona’s trembling
experience of living under her Daddy, through phrases such as “The tongue stuck in my jaw”, “It stuck in
a barb wire snare” which evokes the horrific images of ‘ghettos’ and ‘concentration camps’ of the
holocaust. Moreover, the poet persona uses the imagery of the metaphors such as “neat mustache”, “The
blue Aryan eyes”, “Swastika” – the symbol of Nazism , to build the metaphor of her father as a Nazi. She
even says that “I think I may well be a Jew. In doing so, Plath invited a great deal of controversies.
Jacqueline Rose, is one among the critics, who strongly feels that Plath’s use of similes , metaphors and
metonymy of the holocaust is not justified since she uses it to talk about the experience of patriarchy and
also because she doesn’t identify herself with the holocaust victims. Therefore, Plath’s attempt to connect
the systematic oppression of the patriarchy to the systematic extermination of the Jews comes across as
inappropriate.
“Daddy”, despite being controversial and excessive in its use of imagery and metaphors
certainly “holds an “iconic stature” for its powerful articulation of the female traumatic experiences of
patriarchy within the family by the male figures. After long years of psychological pain ,the poet persona
comes to realize what “the villagers always knew” about her father in the ending stanza. the final
statement therefore - “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through” marks the end of the speaker’s rage that
permeated all through the poem , as she finally decides to let go completely of his memories, and
triumphs in illegitimating herself by breaking free from the figurative prison of her father’s
identity ,years after her father’s death. Hence, it is certainly justifiable to conclude that, in the poem,
Plath appropriates the patriarchal discourse of the elegy to suucessfully kill the patriarch- her father.