In her poem “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath uses violent, disturbing, and controversial imagery to illustrate her tumultuous relationship with her father both before and after his death in 1940 His work, and this poem in particular, is often notable for its juxtaposition of haunting metaphors with lively alliteration and childish rhyme schemes. This and other contradictions found in the work describe the speaker's lack of control and understanding regarding his relationships with men. Despite the piece's undeniable feminist overtones, Plath lacks any tangible statements about gender equality; instead, "Daddy" acts more as a commentary on his struggles with patriarchy and emotional abuse. This idea is supported by the metaphor she creates of herself as a victim of the Holocaust and her father as a Nazi soldier. The way Plath symbolizes Nazism in relation to her father runs through the poem, from subtlety to brazenness, and ultimately encompasses her relationships with both her father and her husband, Ted Hughes. While many critics discuss his World War II metaphors and allusions regarding his personal relationships, this essay will discuss how the Nazi imagery in "Daddy" asserts patriarchy as a form of fascism in society as a whole. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In “Daddy,” I argue that Plath uses inductive reasoning to generate an argument about the patriarchal world that destroyed her. While harsh, the symbolism found in her Holocaust metaphors is honest, which seems to be more important to her than being politically correct. The use of these violent metaphors in “Daddy” can be applied to any power trip: whether it is a Fuhrer, a father or a husband's attempted domination, the process is brutal and its effects are harmful and long lasting. Plath's experiences with men inspire her to write openly about the pain and loss of power she felt as a victim in a patriarchal society. The poem introduces our speaker and “dad” with a series of contrasts: “black” and “white,” big and small. , powerful and fearsome (Plath, 2, 4). However, contradictions are not only found on the surface of language. Each stanza addresses Plath's internal contradiction: the desire to resist versus the desire to let go. Thirty years after his father's death, he has a lot to say about it, but communicating is difficult and uncomfortable. While the poem presents “daddy” as fearsome, cold, and dominating, in a moment of vulnerability the speaker says, “I prayed to heal you” (Plath, 14). Despite the dissonance between the speaker and her father, she wants to reach him, understand him and know him. The act of praying gives the audience insight into our speaker's inability to communicate with both her father and God, another father figure. The only description Plath offers us of her father is distant and confusing; the only detail is his German origin, but it is not yet known exactly where he comes from. Perhaps the lack of information is what drives his fixation; she doesn't understand how a dead man she knows so little about can have so much control over her. In the sixth stanza, "Ich, ich, ich, ich" is rich in meaning: it is another reinforcement of his father's German heritage, but it is also a stutter, which could be caused by the speaker's fear of speaking in front of his father (Plath, 27). However, combined with the next stanza, it appears that Plath intended the line to function as an onomatopoeia. When said aloud, the repeated German word resembles the sound of a train. This turns into his first reference to the Holocaust:“An engine, an engine / Puffs me like a Jew” (Plath, 31-32). His father's words, represented by German, are his captors. The train serves as a metaphor for how he feels victimized by his father. Then he says: “I began to speak like a Jew. / I think I might be Jewish” as she compares her father's oppression to that of the concentration camps of the Holocaust (Plath, 34-35). The speaker is so strongly opposed to the language and her father's oppression, that she begins to "talk like a Jew" – a denial of the German language and, by default, of her father. Although it has been subtly implied in the previous stanzas, the speaker begins to address her father's Nazism more directly. Again, he speaks of his fear "of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo;" his fear really has layers. It seems to directly state his involvement with the Nazis by associating him with the Luftwaffe, the German air force. Following his statement with “gobbledygoo” may seem like a mockery of what the German language sounds like to foreign ears. It now seems clear that hearing her father speak German had a terrifying effect on her that she struggles to make sense of even long after his death. For the first time, Plath offers us a physical description of “Daddy.” He says: “your trimmed moustache, / And your Aryan eye, bright blue” referring not only to the “perfect race” the Nazis were trying to create, but in the “trimmed moustache” also evoking the image of Hitler ( Plath, 42 -44). The speaker's father now is like the German image of terrible perfection – with Hitler's mustache and idealized blue eyes. In contrast to "Ach, du" which followed the prayer to bring him back, this stanza ends with the English translation, "O You -" as a reaction to his cruelty. Now that the speaker has returned to her sigh of "O You" from the beginning of the poem, she also returns to the concept that her father seemed to her to be God. He now appears to her to be "Not God but a swastika." It is so black that it blocks out the entire sky (Plath, 46). This leads to one of the most controversial and widely discussed lines in the poem: "Every woman worships a fascist", which is the first time Plath makes a statement regarding women outside of herself. The question arises: did she choose to be oppressed. This verse seems to me to be my first taste of a new male. It might be inferred that Plath is referring to her tumultuous marriage to Ted Hughes; she couldn't choose your father, but she chose her husband. Even though the tone here is sarcastic, he says “every woman.” , it feels like it's making a broad statement about women as a whole. Perhaps his voice is shifting from a simple victim to something more complicated. Just as she contradicted herself at the beginning of the poem, this sentence seems to ask whether she, and women in general, want to be dominated. This idea can also be reinforced by the title of the poem. “Daddy” is an affectionate term compared to “father” or even “daddy.” Calling the poem "Daddy" suggests that the speaker still cares for his father despite his statements throughout the work. The speaker's relationship with men is both terrifying and dependent and can be interpreted as a metaphor, questioning society's demand for structure and traditionalism. Plath brings attention back to the speaker when she refers to her “beautiful red heart” being broken in two (Plath, 56). These two lines continue the contrast between the father and the speaker. The father is huge, evil, and black, while the speaker, like his heart, is cute, red, and victimized. Although her father, who she refers to as the devil in stanza eleven, is the “bogeyman” who broke her heart, she admits, “At twenty I tried to die” (Plath, 55, 58). Referring to his