Exploring Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’: A Complex Poem
‘Daddy’ is undoubtedly one of the most examined poems penned by Sylvia Plath, and it holds the distinction of being her most iconic work. Its reputation is also marred by controversy. But does ‘Daddy’ serve as a raw and honest reflection of Plath’s personal relationship with her father, or is it more akin to a dramatic monologue delivered by a fictional speaker addressing her father? Similarly, can ‘Daddy’ be interpreted as a serious, tragic meditation on a daughter’s fraught feelings towards her deceased father, or does it possess elements of dark humor? While many readers might lean towards the former interpretation, doing so would contradict Plath’s own insights regarding the poem’s essence (more on this shortly).
Let us delve deeper into this intricate and provocative poem by first summarizing its content and then analyzing its broader implications. Plath composed ‘Daddy’ in a single day, on October 12, 1962, a mere four months before she tragically took her own life.
Summary
In a BBC radio reading, Sylvia Plath characterized ‘Daddy’ as a poem about “a girl with an Electra complex” whose “father died while she thought he was God.” She also noted that the father figure in the poem was a “Nazi” and that the speaker’s mother was likely of Jewish descent. Thus, ‘Daddy’ is narrated by a female speaker positioned as the child of both oppressor and victim, revealing a duality of experiences in her life.
One of the primary reasons for the poem’s contentiousness lies in Plath’s allusion to the Holocaust. Additionally, Plath explained that the daughter in the poem “has to act out the awful little allegory once over before she is free of it.” Therefore, ‘Daddy’ operates as a performance, both by Plath herself and the (fictional) narrator within the poem.
The poem opens with the speaker acknowledging her suffocating existence, likening it to being confined within a black shoe that restricts her ability to breathe or sneeze. The imagery here evokes a profound sense of oppression and constraint.
In the second stanza, the speaker directly addresses her father, declaring that she has had to kill him, even though he passed away long before she could enact this violent desire. She describes him as heavy as marble, almost god-like, resembling a grotesque statue whose toe is as large and grey as a seal found in the waters of San Francisco Bay. This imagery resonates with an earlier poem by Plath, ‘The Colossus’, which similarly evokes her complex feelings towards her father through the metaphor of a giant, fractured statue.
Her father’s head, she notes, is in the Atlantic, symbolizing his immense presence that spans the continent of North America. The mention of “Nauset” (a location in Massachusetts) juxtaposed with “Ach, du” (German for “Oh, you”) reinforces the poem’s transatlantic dimensions. She confesses that she used to pray for her father’s return from the dead.
As the poem progresses, the speaker reflects on a common Polish town that bears her father’s roots, a place so ubiquitous that she struggles to pinpoint his origins. Her inability to locate this town prevents her from truly communicating with him, leaving her tongue ensnared in a barbed-wire trap, stammering “Ich” (the German word for “I”) repeatedly. Her father merges into the indistinct mass of other Germans, making it impossible for her to differentiate him.
She describes the German language he spoke as “obscene,” evoking the trains that transported Jewish individuals to concentration camps like Dachau, Auschwitz, and Belsen. Rather than emulate her father’s speech, she begins to identify with the Jewish experience, suggesting a complex wrestling with identity.
Despite her tenuous connection to Vienna, marked by its snows and beer, her Romani ancestry and penchant for Tarot cards hint at a latent Jewish identity. She reveals a lifelong fear of her father, linked to his association with the Luftwaffe and the intimidating rhetoric of his childhood that may have once seemed impressive to her.
The speaker comes to a profound realization: her father is not God (contrary to her earlier belief), but rather akin to the swastika—an emblem of the Nazi regime, dark enough to obscure all light. She provocatively asserts that every woman secretly loves a fascist, drawn to the brutality and dominance typified by figures like her father.
Next, the speaker contemplates an old photograph of her father, captured in front of a blackboard, suggesting an academic role (mirroring Plath’s own father’s profession). She imagines him possessing a cleft chin, yet envisions a cleft foot like that of the devil, symbolizing the evil that has shattered her life. She was only ten years old at the time of her father’s death (Plath herself lost her father when she was eight). A decade later, she attempted suicide, longing for reunion with her father in the afterlife (notably, Plath’s first suicide attempt occurred when she was twenty), or simply to be dead and a mere pile of “bones” beside him.
However, her attempt was thwarted, leading to her being “fixed” and reconstructed, akin to a broken object mended with glue. Unable to reach her father through death, the speaker creates a model of him—a figure in black resembling a Nazi (a nod to Hitler’s memoir Mein Kampf, meaning “my struggle”) who delighted in tormenting others. She then symbolically “marries” this model, uttering the vow “I do,” and asserts that she is finally “through” with him. This metaphor suggests a severing of ties, as if she has disconnected from the voices that haunt her.
In the penultimate stanza, the speaker proclaims that in “killing” her father, she has also eradicated another figure—her husband (perhaps the model or her real-life spouse), who has drained her vitality for seven years. This act of exorcism liberates her from the ghosts of her past.
In the concluding stanza, her “daddy” is likened to a vampire, defeated with a stake through his heart, much to the relief of the villagers who always viewed him with disdain. They dance upon his grave, exulting in his demise, having recognized him as a vampire who fed upon the living. The speaker declares she’s “through,” implying she has finally liberated herself from his memory and the grip he held over her. Yet, critics have noted that “I’m through” can also convey a sense of exhaustion, suggesting the speaker may feel defeated and spent. The degree of triumph she experiences at the poem’s conclusion remains subject to interpretation.
Analysis
In many respects, Plath’s ‘Daddy’ can be interpreted as a poignant exploration of an individual grappling with early childhood trauma. This perspective is articulated by Tim Kendall in his insightful examination of Plath’s work, where he connects the poem to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud. Kendall argues that the choice of title (‘Daddy’ rather than ‘Dad’ or the more formal ‘Father’) and the frequent use of simplistic, childlike rhymes suggest a speaker who has either regressed to or never fully transcended an infantile comprehension of her father. The poem’s structure balances formal constraints with a more liberated expression: each stanza comprises five lines, with the recurring “oo” sounds permeating the work, yet lacking a strict rhyme scheme.
Kendall also links the poem to Freud’s ‘fort-da’ game, in which a child throws a cotton reel from their crib and calls out “fort” (meaning “gone” in German), prompting the mother to retrieve it, leading the child to exclaim “da!” (meaning “there”). This game encapsulates the compulsion to repeat, connecting to the death drive and a desire for self-annihilation—a theme that resonates with Plath’s own life, evidenced by the poem’s repetitive motifs.
Moreover, ‘Daddy’ is imbued with what Kendall describes as “transgressive humor.” Anne Stevenson recounts an instance when Plath read the poem aloud to a friend, prompting both women to erupt in laughter. Intriguingly, Plath categorized ‘Daddy’ as “light verse,” a classification that may surprise many readers.
Plath as a Confessional Poet
Sylvia Plath is frequently regarded as a key figure within the Confessional Poetry movement, alongside contemporaries like Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, and W.D. Snodgrass. Confessional poetry often delves into the impact of childhood trauma on the adult poet, who grapples with dark thoughts and familial strife. However, ‘Daddy’—arguably Plath’s most renowned poem—serves as an illustrative case for why the “confessional” label may be overly simplistic when applied to her oeuvre. Philip Larkin recognized this distinction when reviewing Plath’s poetry in 1982, noting a “jauntily impersonal” tone permeating much of her work.
As Plath herself articulated in a prefatory note accompanying the poem during a reading, ‘Daddy’ centers on a woman, but while she shares certain traits with Plath (such as having a German father), many elements—like the father’s Nazi affiliation and the mother’s Jewish background—are clearly fictional and diverge from Plath’s reality. Notably, her husband Ted Hughes, whom she married in 1956, was often seen as a “man in black,” frequently dressed in that color.
The crucial takeaway is that Plath transmutes personal experiences and autobiographical details into a broader commentary that extends beyond mere individual narratives. As she provocatively states, “Every woman adores a fascist,” hinting at a universal resonance that transcends her own life experiences. One might analyze ‘Daddy’ as a hybrid form, blending elements of traditional lyric poetry with the dramatic monologue. The speaker, while a fictional persona, shares significant commonalities with Plath, yet retains distinct differences, allowing for a complex interplay of identity and experience.