PSYCHOANALYTIC ON DADDY BY SYLVIA PLATH

About the poem

To express intense emotions towards her fathers life and death and

her disastrous relationship with her husband

Lost her father at age ten, at a time when still adores him

unconditionally
She gradually realizes the oppressing dominance of her father, and

compares hi to a Nazi, a devil, and a vampire

The conflict of this relationship continues with her husband which led

to a short and painful marriage

In Daddy by Sylvia Plath, the author illustrates her feelings of anger

and resentment towards her father and husband along with being oppressed for most of her life through her poetic devices of vivid metaphor, imagery, rhyme, tone, and simile.

RHYME
Irregularity in rhyme. Not a free flowing poem because it is able to split it up into three

separate parts.
The rhyming of the oo sound is evident throughout the poem

No regular pattern of which lines rhyme

These irregularities reinforce the life that Plath lived without her father,

one that could speak at happiness and then plummet to sadness in a short period of time.
Also the poem is written in stanzas of five short lines. These lines are like

a Mike Tyson jab, short but extremely powerful as an example of this, If Ive killed one men Ive killed twoThe vampire who said he was you. The powerful imagery of these lines overpowers any of the rhyme scheme.

TONE
An adult engulfed in outrage This outrage, at times, slips into the sobs of a child. This is evident by Plaths continued use of the word daddy and the

childlike repetition You do not do, you do not do ,Daddy, daddy, you bastard
Fear from her childhood moves her in directions that will take her far

from herself. She also brings us starkly into the world of a childs fear.

She uses words that sound like the words of a child staring out at

behind a barb wire snare saying I have always been scared of you.

Tone
The tone then changes toward the end of the poem from fear of

a child to a strong woman. She states, So daddy, Im finally through. And I knew what to do.
has overcome her powers; she has killed all the self-doubt inside of her

In the last two stanzas demonstrates an attitude of power. Plath

She is illustrating how she now has power over the memories

of her father.
She is confident enough to speak directly to her adversary.

The tone in these lines also gives more power to the poem. Daddy, daddy, you bastard has more effect on an audience than Daddy was a bastard.

You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew. The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you. You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I'm finally through. The black telephone's off at the root, The voices just can't worm through. If I've killed one man, I've killed two The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Introduction
The psychoanalytical literary lens was built

on and developed from the work of the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Wrote in 1962, a year before she committed suicide (Plath) The biographical poem deals with the authors own unresolved Elektra Complex (which stemmed from the lifelong anger and resentment the author felt for her father when he passed away when she was eight years old.)

 Line 6, she writes :-

Daddy, I have had to kill you

It shows that she tried to move past her complex.

Line 7 she writes :-

You died before I had time

Which means that she was never able to.

Plath displays this aspect of her unresolved Elektra Complex

in lines 8, 9 and 10,she writes: marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal. Her father symbolize god to her, idealized, omnificent, and omnipresent.

 In line 14, she writes: I used to pray to recover you,

Emphasizes the idealized feelings she had. (She prayed to her own father who was her god to bring himself back to her.)

 Lines 56-59, she writes:I was ten when they buried you

at twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. She tried to kill herself at age 20 to get back to her father, which tells the reader that even 12 years after her fathers death, and 14 years after her phallic phase should have ended she was still developmentally halted. Her suicide attempt wasnt a success, nor was it the resolution of her complex, so next she tried to resolve her conflicts by replacing her father with her husband.

 Plath exposes Elektra Complex concept in lines 69-71,

when she writes: I made a model of you A man in black with a Meinkampf look and a love of the rack and the screw. and I said I do, I do.
The final example of how the Elektra Complex is prevalent when looking at a text through the psychoanalytic lens, is by looking at the overall appearance of the poem itself.

 http://english252-005.wikidot.com/psychoanalysis

http://www.internal.org/Sylvia_Plath/Daddy