Tone In Sylvia Plath's Daddy

Improved Essays
Throughout Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy,” The tone is found to be childishly innocent, kind of close to a lullaby, and extremely deranged and menacing. As it progresses the tone ranges from like a childlike adoration, where she puts the parent whose not there on a pedestal to a blunt like a disrespectful, distant and fearful adult. Even though Plath excels in tones, Plath keeps a deep and heavy dark style throughout the poem with her use of diction. “Daddy” is a confessional poem, put in a harsh, ill manner, matching too much of Plath’s work. With what is known about Sylvia Plath and her life, as expected her experiences reflect in her work in the form of her signature tone and style.
This poem begins in such a rhythmic way, like with Plath’s use of repetition in the first stanza. She started with, “You do not do, you do not do / any more,” Plus notice Plath’s
…show more content…
The memories and facts that are given here have an angry irritated look what you did feel. Where as Plath’s has a more violent angry feel to it. She uses holocaust references and language to give you a sense of her pain. Where as, I use cartoon implications with a southern undertone to make my audience understand place and time frame. As well as other situations that the general “Daddy Issues” unknowingly led to.
Untitled begins with a undermining language with almost a petty since of stating facts. While also using the ways that my dad refers to himself in third person “Daddy Loves You” and “Daddy’s Sorry” his slang and way of apologizing in the same way one of my relationships would do. Letting the reader see the effects and correlation how your dad is your first example and stress that a lost child goes through. Drawing from Plath’s techniques of childish references and rhythm using the sound “oo”. I related back to the text using the same theme and topic, as Sylvia

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Walking down the street with his boy Johnny, John tries to make conversation with his boy but finds it hard. John knows very little about his son and the barrier in between them is big enough to block out any insight John could have gained into Johnny's life. He has always prioritized himself over others, wanted to feel good and look good in the public’s eyes. John does not look at the end goal of his priorities, how it may affect his family or what he is missing out on and the idea of losing the relationship he had with his family slipped past him.…

    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “When a father dies, he is gone; there is no tiny, smiling daddy who appears, waving happily in a secret pocket in your chest” (9). The death of his father turned his whole life upside down, and he especially let it out on…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although the poets above are greatly influenced by their father’s absence, Charles Bukowski’s “Three Oranges” indisputably displays a daughter whose dad is present but she is still negatively affected by the absence of a father figure. In today’s generation, adolescents are too busy growing up that they forget that their parents are aging as well and will eventually pass away. In the poem “Bored” the poet clearly defines the cliché “you don’t know what you have until it is gone.” Margaret Atwood begins her poem by stating “all those times I was bored/ out of my mind” which implies that she never fully appreciated her father’s presence and took the boring father/daughter times for granted, causing her to be affected after he was gone (Atwood 27).…

    • 1256 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In ‘My Fathers hands’ the author constructs the visual of his Father using emotive language to allow the reader to gather a heartfelt perspective on the pain in any sons heart due to the loss of the main man in their life. Worthington explores what death looks like to a grieving family member and inevitably leaves the reader feeling a sense of empathy for the fears of illiteracy his father experienced in the last few moments of life. “As I held the bottle of nitro-glycerine pills, the scene of Dad struggling to remove the cap and in desperation trying to break the bottle with the brick flashing painfully before my eyes. With deep anguish I knew why those big, warm hands had lost in their struggle with death.” The way the author re tells a memory helps the reader to visually understand all aspects to the story which is similarly practiced in ‘Genesis and a catastrophe’.…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” revolved around the theme of a father-son relationship which was always left open to interpretation due his shift from positive to negative word tone. My Papa’s Waltz shows that sometimes the poems overall takeaway can be changed due to what light see the poem in. Roethke shows how a man reminisces on his past memories and describes his father, a man riddled with flaws. Through an analysis of each stanza, the word romp, and the last line of the poem, we can see how a change in voice can reveal how different the characters of the poem can seem to each other and especially to us.…

    • 1823 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Grief is something everyone will experience at sometime in their life and a person is never prepared for the feelings that follow. The poem “Nick and the Candlestick” by Sylvia Plath is the narration of of a woman processing a loss of a loved one. Sylvia Plath is a published poet by the age of nine and a certified genius with a 160 IQ at twelve (Tananbaum). Plath uses the nostalgic mood of the poem to convey the theme of grief in the poem so that the reader can prepare for a time when they will share the same grief and pain. She does this through word choice, voice, tone, and tension in the poem.…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Initially, in part one, the narrator sticks with the medical aspect of her problems. She repeats, “I am tired” (Rubin 1, 16, 23, 27). Through this repetition, the narrator is emphasizing to the reader how she is inexplicably tired. The details are elaborated throughout the poem, but overall, part one is simply about how finished she is with doing everything possible action she can to prevent her body from its inevitable conclusion. There are two other instances where repetition is utilized.…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As Ellen Moers states, ‘no writer has meant more to the current feminist movement’ suggesting Sylvia Plath poetry is a voice and a mental escape for women. However, this is critiqued as Sheryl Meyering states ‘Sylvia Plath’s intense desire to be accepted by men and eventually marry and have a children was purely a product of the constrictive 1950s social mobility during which the author came to womanhood’ . Despite the fact that there is some truth to this statement, it is evident the unhappiness which occurred had resulted in both her clinical depression and suicide. ‘Tulips’ explores society’s lack of protection of the individuals suffering from depression and feeling ‘lost’ as Plath’s excruciating moments required assistance and attention. Despite using poetry as an escape for both herself and women who during the patriarchal society within the 1960s, it was clear through a substantial number of poems she strived for what was considered the passive housewife role.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Indeed, the epigraph that precedes Hayden’s poem, “Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,” (1-2) in direct contradistinction to the father’s force in Espada’s poem: “you better learn / to eat soup / through a straw, / ‘cause I’m gonna / break your jaw” (3-7). Literally speaking, the father’s lack of education fuels his desire for his son to get educated. Moreover, Hayden illustrates the father as a loving, patient, and kind character, while Espada describes the father as a brutal, and inconsistent thinker. The two authors directly state what they wanted to say in their poem towards the situations that a father engages with. In contrast to Hayden’s poem, despite each poem’s shared theme of a father’s love, the language and imagery put forth in Espada’s are markedly…

    • 1661 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Plath’s mother introduces Sylvia as a non-confrontational woman to demonstrate submission. This is seen through Plath’s reaction towards her husband’s, Ted Hughes, book being accepted first, while using the quote, “I am so happy that HIS book is accepted FIRST. It will make it so much easier for me when mine is accepted”. The use of the this quote gives the reader insight of Sylvia’s thinking process and desire to be free from confrontation. The words HIS and FIRST are put in capital letters to express Plath’s delight that her husband’s book will be published first, making it easier for her to accept her accomplishment when her book is accepted.…

    • 1050 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    ESSAY 1 ELEANOR LOUISE WILSON Mrs Kristan ENGLISH 101 09/29/15 In “Knock Knock” by Daniel Beaty the purpose of the poem is is to highlight the importance of a fatherly figure during a son’s childhood. This significance is portrayed throughout the text by the authors use of repetition of symbolic phrases “knock knock”, as well as the narrative of the story being portrayed through the eyes of a child giving us a clearer indication of how it must feel to grow up without a father. The author uses a letter half way through the text which further influences how crucial a fatherly role is in a son’s life specifically, as well as highlighting this through portraying the failed lessons the child in the narrative has missed out on.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While in “Daddy” the little girl was not physically wounded but emotionally. This critical analysis has compare and contrast the two poems “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke and “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. In “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath the little girl dislikes her dad for what he did. In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke the son is having a hard time in the kitchen with his father.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout Sylvia Plath’s life, she suffered from many personal struggles. When she was eight years old, her father had died from diabetes, and she blamed him for leaving her at such a young age. Due to this, she both loved and hated her father. Her feelings are expressed in the poem she wrote named “Daddy”.…

    • 774 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Daddy and Lady Lazarus are poems written in 1963, by Sylvia Plath and were shortly released after her death. Sylvia Plath is a famous American poet born in October 27, 1932. Plath was really depressed since at the age of 10 after her Father's death. She tried to commit suicide multiple times and failed. Plath's famous Poems “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” are mainly influenced on her depression and her complex relationship with her Dad and her husband Ted Hughes.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    This developing tone of regret and distance is also created through the speaker’ representation of his father with “cracked hands that ached,” which indicates the father’s struggle with the harsh coldness. The “stirring of banked fires” within…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays