Anger, Disgust, and Letting Go

Anger, Disgust, and Letting Go

Growing up is tough for anybody, no matter what their situation. It can have more difficulty for some people than others, though. While some children have excellent parents who love them tremendously and raise them well, other kids get the bitter end of the stick, and have parents who ignore their needs, and treat them with cruelty. These children become angry at their parents for the way they raised them, and hold resentment against them causing a scar in the child's life. Some children allow themselves to break free of their hatred and move on, while others hold it inside until they explode. Letting go just takes longer for some than others. Moving on is especially hard for girls in the case of their father's oppressiveness. This can be seen in Sylvia Plath's poem, "Daddy," where it takes her thirty years to move on, and allow herself peace with the way her father traumatized her. In her poem, Plath explains her feelings of rage, abandonment, confusion, and grief through the use of conflict, symbolism, tone, and other tools such as these.

Plath uses the conflict of male authority and control versus the right of a female to be herself, to make choices, and be free of male domination. The intensity of her conflict cannot be ignored due to her symbolism of Nazi Germany when she states, "With your LuftwaffeÐ'... and your neat moustache and your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man." (lines 42-45) Also in her reference to the Jews, the reader can see her oppression: "A Jew in Dachau, Auschwitz, BelsonÐ'.... I think I may well be a Jew." Plath references her constant manipulation by her father in connecting it to the twentieth century's worst era. The words "marble-heavy, a bag full of God" portrays the omniscience of her father's authority, and the heaviness it weighed on her throughout her life. In comparing her father and husband to "vampires drinking her blood", Plath conveys the ability of male power to strip someone of their own sense of themselves, and suck the life from them. The frequent use of the word black suggests a feeling of gloom and even suffocation. Plath's use of similes and metaphors such as "Chuffing me off like a Jew" and "I think I may well be a Jew," (lines 32-35) show her feelings of hopelessness and agony.

Not only did Plath feel hopeless, but angry as well. The tone of this poem reveals an adult engulfed in outrage. This rage can also slip into the sobs of a child. The poem shows this in the use of the word "daddy". Plath states, "I have always