TW: Abuse. Suicide ideation/attempt.
I keep saying that I’m not a poet, and that I struggle with understanding poetry, then we get to Sylvia Plath and I remember the things that I’ve always enjoyed about poetry. It’s not that “Daddy” is any easier to understand than many of the other poems we’ve read. Still, somehow it feels more accessible.
There is something about the way this poem looks on the page, or the screen, that feels relatable. Each stanza has five lines, and while the lines are not all exactly the same length, there is comfort in that small level of conformity. There is a predictability to this poem that has been missing in many of the other styles. This looks and feels like what many think of as a “traditional” poem.
The rhyme scheme is irregular, but it still has a sort of pattern. Every other stanza is full of “oo” ending word sounds. Those “oo” stanzas do not have particular patterns to the sounds, though the lack of formal pattern does not lessen the expectancy of the sound for the reader, and Plath delivers time and again.
Plath makes many comparisons in “Daddy” using both simile and metaphor. Notably, the speaker’s father is compared to a “black shoe”, a “ghastly statue”, and a fascist. Plath tells a lot about her father with the words she uses to describe him, and the picture she paints isn’t pretty.
In the first stanza, she seems to indicate that, although he is dead, she has still been held captive by his memory. She was so constrained that she was barely able to breathe or sneeze. This could be because of sorrow over his loss, but there is a deeper feeling of almost stagnation, “poor and white” indicating that she was empty and she rarely saw the sun.
The second stanza starts with the confession that she “had” to kill him, then an explanation that he died before she could do that. This jarring confession followed by the explanation leaves the reader with some uncertainty. What happened to him, and why is she not upset? The allusion to a marble statue connects him to something that isn’t human, isn’t flesh. Instead, he is almost like a stand-in for something alive, a representation of a god-like hero, but with a dash of the Grotesque because it’s only his toe, and a mention of a West coast city. Also, the enjambment is interesting, because it serves as a way to contain this stanza but also connect it to what’s coming.
Stanza three switches to the East coast, with a mention of Nauset. Again, there is a body part mentioned, this time it’s the head. Daddy is not just dismembered, he has also been beheaded. The ending of “ach, du” roughly translates to “Oh my goodness”, and that should denote surprise, but there is nothing that signals true astonishment, except maybe the use of “ach, du”. That feels like foreshadowing.
The fourth stanza invites the reader to speculate a little. German? Polish? The town was bulldozed by war. Which town? Does it matter? The name of the town could be the name of any other town. This doesn’t feel literal, but it feels very intentional – the actual name doesn’t matter. Again, the stanza ends with enjambment with “My Polack friend”, as containment but also connection.
Stanza five indicates that she tried to look for him, or more likely sought to understand him, but was not able to do so. “I never could talk to you” could be a memory from childhood, a commentary on the relationship that the child-her had with him. It feels more like an accusation, almost a condemnation. That she says “THE tongue stuck in my jaw” is interesting, mainly because she disassociates herself from THE tongue. She doesn’t want to claim the tongue, or be responsible for what it might say.
In six through eight, there seems to be a bit of shock value being tried out, with both the German phrases and the idea that there is a secret ancestry that would upset her father, put him at odds with her from an ideological standpoint. There is the suggestion that she is possibly Jewish and maybe even Romani, and neither one would be ok.
Stanzas nine and ten indicate that the speaker has always feared her father, and that he physically resembles a typical Nazi, with his “neat mustache” and bright blue Aryan eyes and brutes and swastika references.
In stanzas eleven and twelve, the big breakthrough happens. An image of the father is recalled, and a mention is made of how her heart was “bitten in two”. Bitten is used with intention, it is an action that happened to her. She isn’t saying that the loss of her father broke her heart, but that her father intentionally severed her heart into two pieces with his teeth. That is graphically descriptive, and seems to indicate a level of abuse that has only been hinted at to this point. There is a recollection of his death when she was ten, then she casually mentions that she tried to kill herself when she was twenty, in an effort to join her father in death. The pull between missing him and hating him seems especially strong here. Also, the repetition of “back, back, back to you” echoes the repetition of “brute” in stanza ten in a weird way.
Thirteen through fifteen deal with the adult repercussions of parental abuse, and how that manifests psychologically. The idea that she was put back together by a nameless “they”, then jumped into a marriage with someone just like her own father is shown through “I do, I do” like a marriage vow. This man drained her blood, her lifeforce, even though he said he would take care of her.
In the final stanza, everything is wrapped up, though it’s far from neat. From dismemberment to a stake through the heart, the point is clearly made that violence plays a major role in this relationship. It is interesting that in at least three different versions online, “knew” is in italics. Why? Out of all of the words to draw attention to, why “knew”? Is it because it has that “oo” sound, or is the speaker giving those villagers a power that she never had?
Thanks for working through this poem so carefully. I especially appreciate your recognition that a rhyme scheme and sound patterning that is irregular still creates a sort of formal expectation for the reader. That’s a really great insight.
I’m not sure what to make of the “knew.” Just highlighting its sounds doesn’t seem like enough. Maybe it is the confidence and certainty it imparts–this clear knowledge of who the villain is. In a poem that seems to go back and forth and trouble over the memory of the father figure, the finality of his dismissal seems to be accentuated here.