poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

I have to do a discussion for my English class on this poem, and I read your comments and they're pretty similar to what I got. I thought that I would add to them. Obviously, everyone knows that in this poem, Plath is an angry child who was intimidated by her dad "for thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breathe or Achoo". The "wars, wars, wars," to me implied her internal war or conflict of loving and hating her father. I have a few things to put out there. the first is the stanze construction. it you have ever heard Plath read this poem, you will notice that she doesn't pause at "natural breaks", like between stanzas. she reads the poem lik how you would read a story, by the sentence. so why did she choose to write half a sentence in one stanza and the other half in the next stanza? also, the second last line, who is "you"? the repeated symbols "feet" and "shoes" makes me think that she felt trapped and confined like a foot in a shoe.

i think that she was very vicious. But she let her feelings downs on paper. I HATE This pOEM

i am considering whether or not to use this poem for my project. we are supposed to select poems to annotate and analyse and collate them into an anthology. this poem looks pretty impressive to me. i mean, hello, SOOOOOOO many comments?! jeez. im baffled. i think i may just want to print everything out and take a good look. after all, even if i decide not to use the poem, it's still kinda interesting to hear from everybody..((:

The poem Daddy is about Plath's thinly disguised hatred of her father and of her husband. There are many metaphorical allusions to molestation, such as "Ghastly statue with one grey toe", or the stanza "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" - what is the root, is 'tongue stuck in my jaw kissing"?

or
"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 Nazis hated the jews, and yet here is her Daddy "chuffing her off like a Jew" To chuff is to make noisy exhalations, do I need to be more clear?

She may have loved her dad, but hated him and depicted it quite clearly; in fact she shoves it in your face.

I've seen many of your comments and I have to say I really don't agree with all of them. If this poem was only about dealing with a terrible relationship with father and husband and is suicidal, I wouldn't feel so moved by it or be able to relate to it. I have a wonderful father and no husband to complain about. I am also not suicidal. I have always seen this poem in terms of a woman's reaction to a patriarchal society that has been oppressive and stiffling. One has to realize that this poem was written during a time when women were not particularly free. Anyone who has read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan knows what I'm talking about. If it was strictly personal it wouldn't have resonated with so many people. I also feel the Nazi imagery is an accessible image of oppression and abuse. Just like when John Lennon said "woman is the nigger of the world." The image of "nigger" brings to mind those who suffer oppression and prejudice. Also, the line "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through" can be both an expression of giving up and can also be saying that she won't put up with it anymore and wants to be free of "daddy." I think the fact that she killed herself has clouded the minds of so many readers of her poetry. It's not completely separate, but its not all there is either. People are so ready to find symptoms of her tragic death that I think they often miss the point. This is just my perception of it, I think all creative work can be seen in many different ways and they are all valid as long as the work supports the arguments. I just wanted to give my perception.

What happened to a brilliant person? Sylvia Plath hated her father for dying. She was the center of his life when her mother was pregnant. She didn't have time to grow up and naturally separate her idea of him; thinking he is God! She hated him for abandoning her. How could Sylvia abandon her own two small children by committing suicide? No EXCUSES!
You can not just give up with lives on the line. While they were still sleeping she placed cookies and two glasses of milk beside their bed, placed towels under their door, went to the kitchen turned on the gas, opened the oven door, knelt down next to the open door and rested her head on it. She timed it around the au-pair arriving. No EXCUSES! She abandoned her children! Did she realize what that would do to them? She should have been stronger for them! Depression, PMS, unacceptable. Just like the woman who drowned all her children in the bathtub, unacceptable! I don't care for WEAKNESS! Whether someone you know is always moody or takes drugs to deal with life's troubles, poor little baby! Become an adult and deal with whatever life throws your way. No EXCUSES! If her father didn't die and was around throughout her life, hugging her, praising her, loving her, would she even have become a poet? Parents love your children!

psychoanalytically speaking, the mental breakdown that Plath suffers from is scientifically proved to be a good reason for commiting suicide for she could not bear it, keep balance, feel fine, go ahead normally or be her own fixed charechter. depression after depression, breakdown after breakdown are really enough to make a person think seriously in commiting suicide in order to put an end to this painfull endless suffering.
whatever poeple have said about plath's life and if she is right or not for commiting suicide, i think it's her own conflects and experience and nobody can know the limits of her suffering of illness, depression, childhood, her kids, work, responsibilities, her search for her REAL self to set the real identity and her unsatisfied wishes.
Plath saw death as areal path bywhich she can solve her conflicts and satisfy her wishes and needs, set her real self that will deside moves and takes action. For plath, it was akilling illness, unbearable situation, unsolved troubles and never satisfied ambitions so DYIND IS AN ART to get rid of all of that.
anyway, if it happened that anyone of us was under such a condition, her or she will surly kill him/her self or stay mad forever. At least, Plath did her best to face everything, to struugle her community, to try her best even to tast the tastless everyday life, to keep balance, to take care of her kids, to work, to write, to read, to be someone else, someone real and better... but when she could not, she prefered to end her meaningless life in her own exceptional way: by commiting suicide. Plath is way greater than it has ever said. thanks to my proffesor dr.Suzan ramadan from Jordan who gives me the chance to read and write my term paper about Plath; iam before reading Plath is not the same one after reading it!

Her passion is so strong it effects me to the fullest. I sympathize for her because of her cruel father and deprivation of love which was instead a death of beauty which she put into words which were obsured into a certian beauty alluding to ugliness. Isn't that life a beauty of ugliness and ugliness of beauty. Love those who take the ugly into a utmost brilliant form of words and thoughts. Love thy self however circumstances create you, you are your unique self brilliant in ugliness or beauty.

I love this poem. And I agree with GG and everyone else; I think that she married someone with the same characteristics that her fater had. This is so obvious; it says 'I do I do'. How can our english teacher not see this obvious meaning that is implied by Sylvia??

I have read several websites that say this poem is talking about both her father and her husband. I can only draw out of it the father side. I've done research on her husband but i guess I'm not seeing the connection in this poem. Can someone help me out?