Sylvia Plath

The authorial intent of plath has been a point of discussion for Plaths largely autobiogragraphical works. "Intentional fallacy", a term coined by  W.K. Wimsatt and M.C. Beardsley in 1946, talks about "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirible as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art". The text is a source of meaning and any other details about the author's desires of life are secondary. This brings up the argument as to whether Plath's works are still relevant if Plath's use of the pronoun "I" cannot definite Plath's work as entirely autobiographical. This is problematic as often our judgement of her works are shrouded int he overhanging autobiographical details of her life which haunt her work and her legacy.    

Daddy 

Plath once described this poem as being "about a girl who has an electra complex". An electra complex is a freudian term for a girl who is obsessed with her father both physically and emotionally. For Plath, who was known to dote on her father and live for his praise and appreciation, his death had an extremely damaging effect that was to haunt her for the rest of her life. This poem is an embodiment of that damage. Written shortly before her death, it is hard to read it without knowing what it foreshadowed. Its images associated evil and darkness provoke the thought that it was the male figures in her life, both her father and the "model" of him she married, that led to her destructive actions. 

"You" is an intensely personal pronoun. The poem is written as though Plath is herself talking to her father, although "you" could also mean us the audience, or some other figure. 

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.

The "black shoe" has connotations of male power. This could represent not only the dominating impact of her father on her life, under which she feels belittled and suffocated "like a foot", but also of women in the wider world of being dominated by men "poor and white" and how they literally had to tiptoe around the dominant male figures "barely daring to breath or achoo". The weight she feels of grief "black", a symbol that reappears throughout the poem - a connotation of evil and darkness. 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

Killing her father's memory, she again uses imagery that reflects an over dominating presence. She likens her father to "a bag full of God," although he is also "heavy". The statue connotations are also surprisingly bleak and ugly"one gray toe// Big as a Frisco seal" which further reflects Plath's feeling of her father's overarching presence in her life. "Marble" and "Grey" are cold and unloving.

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.

Powerful imagery of the sea reflects the power and uncontrollable nature of Plath's feelings towards her father. Seeing him everywhere: "a head in the freakish Atlantic". "Nauset" is a beach off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where Plath would often spend the summer. Relating a place that's so familiar and personal to Plath and her father is juxtaposed in the next stanza by the distant unknown Polish town. "Ach, du" means "oh" in German, following the "oh you" that reappears later in the poem.

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.

Following the familiarity of "Nauset", the alien language of "German tongue" and "unknown town" adds mysterious ambiguity to the life of her father that is uncomfortably added to by the violence of "war" and the harsh syllables of "Polack". Her connection to her father is blocked by geographical and linguistic boundaries "I never could talk to you". 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

The violent imagery escalates with the "barb wire snare". "Stuck" it insinuates she is painfully trapped by the image of her father "I thought every German was you". 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.

"An engine, an engine" is onomatopoeic as well as being a feature of the poem as repetition escalates like a sort of madness throughout the poem as more words begin to be repeated. Rhythmically too this reflects the chugging of a train engine - cold and mechanical, like the repeated word "Jew". The imagery of the holocaust is synonymous with Plath's view that she is like a prisoner of her father's memory.

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.

The "clear beer" and "snows" reflect purity, although she goes on to say they "are not very pure or true" which perhaps reflects her feelings about her own father's origins. Gipsys and Jews were both subjects of Nazi annihilation as they believed them to be "impure" and outcasts of society.

I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat moustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Germans believed blonde haired, blue eyed Aryans to be the superior race - this perhaps reflects Plath's own view that she feels forever inferior to her father, although this inferiority was bred out of fear "I have always been scared of you". Again she uses heights, like in the statue imagery earlier, of the "Luftwaffe" - the German airforce - to promote the feeling that her Father is forever a dominating force from above - an observer. His "neat moustache" is eerily reflective of Hitler's own facial hair. "Panzer" is the German for armour, which could perhaps be representative of her father's fiercely protective and private personality, that she was never particularly able to break through. This image is taken further however as she describes him as a "Panzer - Man". "Panzer" during the war, was a German tank which could infer her father's protectiveness and seclusion was often used as a weapon - or something she felt as damaging.

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.

In this stanza, Plath comments upon the darkness and evil associated, not just with her father, but with all men. "The boot in the face", "the brute" demonstrates the dominating way in which men treat women "every woman adores a fascist". Even more disturbing is the fact that she portrays that women seek this in a man, they look for domination which is entirely reflective of the gender values society held at the time. 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

A cleft in the foot is usually associated with goats or other animals which are often found in images of the devil with trotters and horns. However she goes on to say he was "no less a devil for that". Darkness and evil are culminated in imagery of the devil and darkness "any less the black man" (which here is more about the black representing gloominess than it is skin colour).

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.

This is reference to Plath's first suicide attempt in which she tried to reunite with her father by dying too. 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

Instead, in a strange epiphany "And then I knew what to do", she realises she needed to find someone who she could replace him with as a male figure of adoration and obsession "I made a model of you". But it turns out he was just as evil and twisted and led her to destruction also - obsession and adoration are not healthy traits. "A man in black with a MeinKampf look" could very well be reminiscent of Ted Hughes. 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.

"I do, I do" echo like marriage vows, but this stanza is also filled with images of torture" a love of the rack and the screw" as he too destroyed her - or perhaps her love for him allowed her to destroy herself. "the black telephone's off at the root" shows communication is no longer possible "the voices just can't worm through" and she can no longer feel connected to anyone.

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.

This is explicitly reflective of her relationship with Ted Hughes, who she was with for seven years. She describes him with vampire imagery "there's a stake in your heart" "drank my blood", as though he drained the life from her - loving him drained the life from her. In Hughes poem "Love Song" he too uses imagery of vampires "his kisses sucked out her whole past" "She bit him, she gnawed him, she sucked" which shows even further that their relationship was built on unhealthy values of an all consuming hunger for each other which was unsustainable. She's killed her image of idolisation "if I've killed one man, I've killed too."