"Daddy" and Confonting Suffering

Paper Summary:

The paper examines how Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy" is the performance of a mind that is finally confronting its own suffering and attempting to exorcise the influence of the speaker's father. The paper highlights the imagery, rhyme and repetition that demonstrates how Plath does not create in this poem, but only destroys and rejects her father.

From the Paper:

"The poem opens with the assertion that "[y]ou do not do, you do not do / Any more" , declaring the speaker's position as one forced to confront her situation with regard to her father. The poem exists as the performance of a mind that is finally confronting its own suffering and attempting to exert a control over the idea that has long oppressed it. The speaker jumps from nursery rhyme to ritual, English to German, from longing to curse. The childlike rhyme and repetition suggests the helplessness of the child and the combination of fear and love the father inspired. Simple, insistent rhythm and rhyme schemes, coupled with repetition, lend both a sense of storybook rhythm and that of a mystical spell by which the exorcism may drive off evil."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Vol.2, 3rd edition.Eds. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair. W.W. Norton & Co.: New York,N.Y. 2003. Pp. 606-608.

More papers on "Daddy" and Confonting Suffering:

• Analytical Essay # 62767 : "Plath's "Daddy" and "Mirror"
• Analytical Essay # 121843 : "Religion and Human Suffering"
• Poem Review # 29324 : "Daddy"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: