"Daddy" is a controversial and highly anthologized poem by the American poet Sylvia

Plath. Published posthumously in 1965 as part of the collection Ariel, the poem was
originally written in October 1962, a month after Plath's separation from her husband,
the poet Ted Hughes, and four months before her death by suicide. It is a deeply
complex poem informed by the poet's relationship with her deceased father, Otto Plath.
Told from the perspective of a woman addressing her father, the memory of whom has
an oppressive power over her, the poem details the speaker's struggle to break free of his
influence.
o The speaker begins the poem by addressing the circumstances in which
she lives, saying that they are simply no longer adequate. She compares herself to a
foot living inside a black shoe. For 30 years she has lived this way, deprived and
without color, not even having the courage to breathe or sneeze.
The speaker then addresses her father, informing him that she has had to kill him,
though she then says that he actually died before she had the chance to do so. She
describes her father as being heavy as marble and like "a bag full of God," as well as
like a horrifying statue with one toe that looks like a San Francisco seal—huge and
gray.
Continuing the image of her father as a statue, the speaker describes his head being
located in the bizarre blue-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean, near the beautiful
coastal town of Nauset, Massachusetts. The speaker tells her father that she used to
pray for his return from the dead, and then in German says, "Oh, you."
The speaker prayed in the German language, in a town in Poland that was utterly
destroyed by endless wars, a town whose name is so common that the speaker's
Polish "friend"—whom she refers to using a derogatory slur—says there must be at
least twelve of them.
Because of this, she couldn't tell where her father had been, nor where exactly he
came from. She couldn't talk to him. It felt as though her tongue kept getting caught
in her jaw.
It was as though her tongue were stuck in a trap made of barbed wire. The speaker
stutters the word "I" in German, demonstrating what it felt like to not be able to
speak. She thought every German was her father. She thought the language was
offensive and disgusting.
The speaker continues describing the German language, saying that it was like the
engine of a train, carrying her off like a Jew to a concentration camp. She began
speaking like a Jew, and then started thinking that she might in fact be a Jew.
The speaker, perhaps still imagining herself on this train, then describes the
Austrian state of Tyrol and the beer of Austria's capital city as being impure and
false. She then lists the other things that might make her Jewish: her Romani
ancestry, her strange luck, and her tarot cards.
She has always been afraid of her father in particular, whom she associates with the
German air force and who spoke words that seemed impressive at first but turned
 out to be nonsense. She goes on to describe his carefully groomed mustache and his
blue, Aryan eyes, and then refers again to his link to the German military, this time
invoking the armored vehicles used in WWII. The speaker addresses her father as
"Oh, You" again, but this time in English.
Again describing her father, the speaker claims that he is not God after all, but
rather a swastika—the symbol of the German Nazi regime, so opaque that no light
could get through it. She then goes on to say that all women love Fascists, being
stepped on brutally by someone who is a monster at heart.
The speaker then recalls a photograph of her father where he is standing in front of
a blackboard. In the picture one could see that he has a cleft chin, but the speaker
implies that he has the cleft feet of a devil as well. The speaker decides that her
father is in fact a devil, as was the wicked man who tore her passionate heart into
pieces.
The speaker was 10 years old when her father died. When she was 20, she tried to
commit suicide so that she could finally be reunited with him. She thought even
being buried with him would be enough.
The suicide attempt was unsuccessful, however, as she was discovered and forced
into recovery. The plan having failed, she came up with another. She made a model
of her father, a man in black who, like her father, looked the part of a Nazi.
This man had a love of torture. She married him. The speaker, directly addressing
her father again, claims she's finally through. The telephone's unplugged and no
one will be getting through to her.
The speaker reckons that if she's killed one man, she's in effect killed two. She
refers to her husband as a vampire, saying that he drank her blood for a year, no,
seven years. She then tells her father he can lie back now.
There's a sharp wooden post, the kind used to kill vampires, stuck through her
father's heart. The speaker imagines a village in which the locals never liked her
father, and so they are dancing and stomping on his body because they always knew
exactly what he was. The speaker deems her father despicable and again tells him
that she's finished.

 “Daddy” Themes

Gender and Oppression

The poem's speaker has been enthralled by her father since childhood yet comes to
realize that his legacy is one of violence and oppression. She spends the poem
breaking free from his hold over her, but the poem is not solely about this one,
specific relationship. Instead, the speaker’s relationship to her father’s memory can
be thought of as representative of the broader power imbalance between men and
women in a patriarchal society, or a society in which men hold most positions of
political, social, and moral authority. The poem implies that such a world subjects
women to repressive rules and violence at the hands of men, limiting their
autonomy, self-expression, and freedom.
The first indication that the poem is addressing patriarchy is through its title. By
addressing “Daddy” (rather than “father” or “dad”), Plath immediately sets up a
dynamic in which a male figure is venerated, literally located at the top of the poem,
while the female speaker is infantilized; she is an adult addressing her father with a
child’s vocabulary, trying to communicate with him through the sing-song cadence
of a nursery rhyme.
The speaker then describes the oppressive shadow of her father's memory by
comparing herself to a foot that has lived inside a “black shoe ... for thirty years,”
too scared to even breathe. In other words, she has been completely smothered by
the presence of her father, who is further described as a colossal statue, heavy as
"marble" or "a bag full of God." All of these descriptors emphasize the sheer weight
and breadth of the speaker's father even in memory, which seems to press down
upon the speaker years after his death. This speaks to his personal hold on her, but
also to the figurative force of the oppression faced by women in a male-dominated
world.
Because of this oppression, the speaker has felt unable to communicate with, let
alone stand up to, her father throughout her life. Not only has she "Barely dar[ed]
to breathe" for thirty years, but her "tongue" has been "stuck in [her] jaw ... in a
barb wire snare." This image emphasizes the sheer violence of her father's hold over
her, which denies her any ability to express herself. The poem thus presents the
inability to communicate as one clear byproduct of oppression.
Throughout the poem the speaker also explicitly conflates her father with the Nazis,
and begins to identify herself with the Jewish people—a response which reveals her
feelings of utter powerlessness against her father. The Nazis were Fascists—
authoritarians who violently squashed any dissent—and this controversial
comparison is meant to again highlight the brutality of her father's presence,
something the speaker implies she was actually to cow to.
Indeed, the speaker even makes the extreme, seemingly offhand comment that
“Every woman adores a Fascist.” This not only draws attention to the power
imbalance between men and women, but to the normalization of violence against
women—violence that is so woven into every aspect of society that women can only
be seen to “adore” their oppressors. In other words, this oppression is so
commonplace, so accepted, that it is hard for victims to even recognize it, let alone
fight back.
To that end, the speaker makes “a model” of her father and marries him. The
husband is described as having “a Meinkampf look” and “a love of the rack and the
screw,” two images which attest to his violent and oppressive nature. This husband
also becomes a "vampire," draining the speaker of blood for seven years—
a metaphor for the way marriage, under patriarchy, robs a woman of any life of
her own. Moving from her father to another man has done nothing to free the
speaker, because she is still living within an oppressive world that treats her as
subservient to the men in her life.
Only in recognizing the patriarchal violence and oppression present in her marriage
and asserting that she’s “finally through” can the speaker metaphorically drive a
stake through her father’s heart. In other words, she is not only freeing herself of
her oppressive marriage, but of the kind of gendered dynamic modeled to her by
her father. In this way the poem argues that the only way to fight patriarchal
oppression is to recognize and expose its many, shapeshifting forms.

Power and Myth-Making

“Daddy” deals with the deification and mythologizing of authority figures. It does
this through the lens of the speaker’s individual relationship with her father as well
as through the historic lens of the Holocaust. In order to see her father clearly, for
who he really was, the speaker first needs to puncture her godlike image of him.
Likewise, Nazi authority is revealed to be vulnerable—dependent on people
believing in the propaganda that mythologized it. The poem demonstrates that
people are subject to authoritarian power when they believe themselves to be
powerless and the authority to be absolute—and that they change this dynamic by
puncturing the illusions that sustain it.
Having lost her father to illness at a young age, the speaker develops an obsession
with him that follows her into adulthood. The speaker’s father “died before [she]
had time—” to see him for who he really was, and because of this the speaker has
been trapped inside a childlike perception of her father as godlike. Over the years,
her memory of him seems only to have grown in its oppressive power, and she
realizes she must destroy her godlike image of him in order to be free. She thus
confesses to her father that she has had to “kill” him—or rather, the idea of him
which has held her in thrall.
To do so is difficult, however. The speaker struggles to see her father clearly, saying
“I never could tell where you / Put your foot, your root.” This image illustrates both
her father's vague identity in the speaker's mind and the speaker’s sense of his
omnipresence, his godlike ability to be everywhere at once—"I thought every
German was you.” This difficulty in pinpointing the man while also being
surrounded by the myth of him speaks to her growing understanding that to see
him clearly would rob him of his power over her.
The speaker goes on to compare her relationship to her father to the relationship
between Jewish people and Nazis during the Holocaust. This comparison not only
illuminates her own struggle but illustrates the ways in which power and authority
are vulnerable to people’s belief in them.
The speaker describes being scared of her father’s “Luftwaffe” and “gobbledygoo”—
on the one hand, the very real physical force represented by the Luftwaffe (the
German air force), and on the other hand, the mythology broadcast by their
propaganda system, a mythology that—when looked at closely—was nothing but
gobbledygoo (nonsense).
She also fears her father’s “Aryan eye, bright blue.” The singular use of “eye” refers
more to a watchful, authoritarian presence than to a literal pair of eyes. Likewise,
during WWII people were paralyzed by the thought of attracting Nazi attention,
behaving every moment as if they were being watched, thus reinforcing Nazi
control. Recognizing the fallacy of her father’s power—"Not God," an actual deity,
"but a swastika," an empty symbol—the speaker invokes the symbol of the Nazi
regime, underlining the fact that in order for a symbol of authority to work, it has to
be “So black no sky could squeak through.” In other words, it must block out all
light, hope, and truth. The moment one begins to see through the illusion, to the
truth of what’s behind it, the symbol loses its power.
Thus only when the speaker is finally able to see her father for who he is, to
puncture her illusion of him as a godlike authority, does she free herself of his
power. The speaker describes a picture she has of her father in which he stands at a
blackboard, apparently teaching a class, a picture which points to his supposed
authority. The speaker, however, finally recognizes that he is “No less a devil” just
because the image conceals his true nature. The poem ends with the speaker
asserting her freedom—“Daddy, daddy, you bastard I’m through”—an assertion she
can make because she no longer buys into the myth of him.
Death and MemoryThe speaker, traumatized by the death of her father at an
early age, develops an obsession with mortality. She dreams of bringing her father
back to life, and when her prayers don’t work, she even tries to join him in death.
When even her attempt at suicide fails, she chooses to bring her father back to
life metaphorically in the form of a husband who resembles him. The poem does
not seem to have an explicit stance on death, however, and instead seems more to
explore the devastating effects such an obsession has on the speaker. While, on the
one hand, the poem can be read as a broad call to puncture authoritarian myths
and free oneself from patriarchal oppression, on a more personal level it simply
speaks to the pain and confusion surrounding the death of a rather toxic parent—
and perhaps to the importance of eventually moving on.
The speaker's father dies when she is just ten years old, and the trauma of this event
has lingered ever since. The poem is filled with images of death and decay, as can be
seen when the speaker deems her father a “Ghastly statue with one grey toe / Big as
a Frisco seal.” This is an allusion to Plath's real-life father, who developed
gangrene of the foot and eventually died from diabetes complications. Clearly, it is
the image of her father's dying which stays with the speaker, and therefore it
is death on which she begins to fixate.
The speaker "pray[s]" to bring him back, as any child who has lost a parent likely
would, and when that fails she attempts suicide: “At twenty I tried to die / And get
back, back, back to you.” She survives the attempt, metaphorically "pulled out of
the sack" and pushed back into her life. Yet she is never the same; she has been
"stuck ... together with glue," implying a newfound sense of fragility and
brokenness upon having failed to reunite with her father.
The speaker then decides rather than trying to reach her father through death, she
will bring him back to life in the form of a husband. The speaker thus makes “a
 model” of her father and marries him. This husband, however, turns out to be just
as unhealthy for her as her fixation on the memory of her father’s death. She claims
that her husband is a vampire who drank her blood—her life force—for seven years.
This image attests to the unhealthiness of the marriage, which drains the speaker of
life in much the same way her father’s memory does.
It is clear that, in order to rid herself of the traumatic hold her father’s death has on
her, the speaker must entirely close the door on this chapter of her life. She does
this through ending her marriage to her husband, an act which she likens to killing
a man. The speaker claims, “If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—”, referring to
the power both her husband and her father’s memory had over her.
By metaphorically bringing her father back to life through marriage, the speaker is
able to exercise control over a set of events which initially left her feeling scared and
helpless. Her marriage acts as a re-enactment of her relationship with her father,
except this time she is an adult and is given the time she needs to see the
relationship clearly. When the speaker chooses to end her marriage, she does so
knowing that it will destroy her father’s memory as well, an act which allows her to
finally break free of her unhealthy fixation with death and move on with her life.
Death
Death is an ever-present reality in Plath's poetry, and manifests in several different
ways.

One common theme is the void left by her father's death. In "Full Fathom Five," she
speaks of his death and burial, mourning that she is forever exiled. In "The Colossus,"
she tries in vain to put him back together again and make him speak. In "Daddy," she
goes further in claiming that she wants to kill him herself, finally exorcising his vicious
hold over her mind and her work.
Death is also dealt with in terms of suicide, which eerily corresponds to her own suicide
attempts and eventual death by suicide. In "Lady Lazarus," she claims that she has
mastered the art of dying after trying to kill herself multiple times. She sneers that
everyone is used to crowding in and watching her self-destruct. Suicide, though, is
presented as a desirable alternative in many of these works. The poems suggest it would
release her from the difficulties of life, and bring her transcendence wherein her mind
could free itself from its corporeal cage. This desire is exhilaratingly expressed in "Ariel,"
and bleakly and resignedly expressed in "Edge." Death is an immensely vivid aspect of
Plath's work, both in metaphorical and literal representations.
Victimization
Plath felt like a victim to the men in her life, including her father, her husband, and the
great male-dominated literary world. Her poetry can often be understood as response to
these feelings of victimization, and many of the poems with a male figure can be
interpreted as referring to any or all of these male forces in her life.

In regards to her father, she realized she could never escape his terrible hold over her;
she expressed her sense of victimhood in "The Colossus" and "Daddy," using powerful
metaphors and comparisons to limn a man who figured heavily in her psyche.
Her husband also victimized her through the power he exerted as a man, both by
assuming he should have the literary career and through his infidelity. Plath felt
relegated to a subordinate, "feminine" position which stripped from her any autonomy
or power. Her poems from the "Colossus" era express her frustration over the strictures
under which she operated. For instance, "A Life" evokes a menacing and bleak future for
Plath. However, in her later poems, she seems finally able to transcend her status as
victim by fully embracing her creative gifts ("Ariel"), metaphorically killing her father
("Daddy"), and committing suicide ("Lady Lazarus", "Edge").
Patriarchy
Plath lived and worked in 1950s/1960s England and America, societies characterized by
very strict gender norms. Women were expected to remain safely ensconced in the
house, with motherhood as their ultimate joy and goal. Women who ventured into the
arts found it difficult to attain much attention for their work, and were often subject to
marginalization and disdain. Plath explored and challenged this reductionist tendency
through her work, offering poems of intense vitality and stunning language. She
depicted the bleakness of the domestic scene, the disappointment of pregnancy, the
despair over her husband's infidelity, her tortured relationship with her father, and her
attempts to find her own creative voice amidst the crushing weight of patriarchy. She
shied away from using genteel language and avoided writing only of traditionally
"female" topics. Most impressively, the work remains poetic and artistic - rather than
political - because of her willing to admit ambivalence over all these expectations,
admitting that both perspectives can prove a trap.
Nature
Images and allusions to nature permeate Plath's poetry. She often evokes the sea and
the fields to great effect. The sea is usually associated with her father; it is powerful,
unpredictable, mesmerizing, and dangerous. In "Full Fathom Five," her father is
depicted as a sea god. An image of the sea is also used in "Contusion," there suggesting a
terrible sense of loss and loneliness.

She also pulled from her personal life, writing of horse-riding on the English fields, in
"Sheep in Fog" and "Ariel." In these cases, she uses the activity to suggest an
otherworldly, mystical arena in which creative thought or unfettered emotion can be
expressed.

Nature is also manifested in the bright red tulips which jolt the listless Plath from her
post-operation stupor, insisting that she return to the world of the living. Here, nature is
a provoker, an instigator - it does not want her to give up. Nature is a ubiquitous theme
in Plath's work; it is a potent force that is sometimes unpredictable, but usually works to
encourage her creative output.
The self
Plath has often been grouped into the confessional movement of poetry. One of the
reasons for this classification is that she wrote extensively of her own life, her own
thoughts, her own worries. Any great artist both creates his or her art and is created by
it, and Plath was always endeavoring to know herself better through her writing. She
tried to come to terms with her personal demons, and tried to work through her
problematic relationships. For instance, she tried to understand her ambivalence about
motherhood, and tried to vent her rage at her failed marriage.
However, her exploration of herself can also be understood as an exploration of the idea
of the self, as it stands opposed to society as a whole and to other people, whom she did
not particularly like. Joyce Carol Oates wrote that even Plath's children seemed to be
merely the objects of her perception, rather than subjective extensions of herself. The
specifics of Plath's work were drawn from her life, but endeavored to transcend those to
ask more universal questions. Most infamously, Plath imagined her self as a Jew,
another wounded and persecuted victim. She also tried to engage with the idea of self in
terms of the mind and body dialectic. "Edge" and "Sheep in Fog" explore her desire to
leave the earthly life, but express some ambivalence about what is to come after. "Ariel"
suggests it is glory and oneness with nature, but the other two poems do not seem to
know what will happen to the mind/soul once the body is eradicated. This conflict -
between the self and the world outside - can be used to understand almost all of Plath's
poems.
The Body
Many of Plath's poems deal with the body, in terms of motherhood, wounds, operations,
and death.

In "Metaphors," she describes how her body does not feel like it is her own; she is simply
a "means" towards delivering a child. In "Tulips" and "A Life," the body has undergone
an operation. With the surgery comes an excising of emotion, attachment, connection,
and responsibility. The physical cut has resulted in an emotional severing, which is a
relief to the depressed woman. "Cut" depicts the thrill Plath feels on almost cutting her
own thumb off. It is suggested that she feels more alive as she contemplates her nearly-
decapitated thumb, and watches the blood pool on the floor. "Contusion" takes things
further - she has received a bruise for some reason, but unlike in "Cut," where she
eventually seems to grow uneasy with the wound, she seems to welcome the physical
pain, since the bruise suggests an imminent end to her suffering. Suicide, the most
profound and dramatic thing one can do to one's own body, is also central to many of
her poems.

Overall, it is clear that Plath was constantly discerning the relationship between mind
and body, and was fascinated with the implications of bodily pain.
Motherhood
Motherhood is a major theme in Plath's work. She was profoundly ambivalent about this
prescribed role for women, writing in "Metaphors" about how she felt insignificant as a
pregnant woman, a mere "means" to an end. She lamented how grotesque she looked,
and expressed her resignation over a perceived lack of options. However, in "Child," she
delights in her child's perception of and engagement with the world. Of course, "Child"
ends with the suggestions that she knows her child will someday see the harsh reality of
life. Plath did not want her children to be contaminated by her own despair. This fear
may also have manifested itself in her last poem, "Edge," in which some critics have
discerned a desire to kill her children and take them with her far from the terrors of life.
Other poems in her oeuvre express the same tension. Overall, Plath clearly loved her
children, but was not completely content in either pregnancy or motherhood