Use of Imagery in Daddy by Sylvia Plath Essay -- Poetry Analysis

As a modern female poet, Sylvia Plath played many roles in her art she was the fragile feminist, the confessional writer, the literary innovator. As a woman, Plath found herself with adept foot in her past and the other in an uncertain future, her present an often uncomfortable combination of the two. She was at once a daughter desperate to make her parents proud and a wife eager to please her husband an overworked, depressed teenager and a lonely, delirious nonplus a child who lost her go and an adult who lost her hope. Plaths confusion between her memories and her fantasies produced the creative inspiration that spawned much of her work the losings she suffered had the homogeneous effect. The death of her initiate became a theme in her poetry on which Plath would often spin her words. In the poem dadaism, Plath uses imagery to compare her father to a shoe, God and a vampire, to establish similarities between her father and her husband and to describe the lack of communicati on between her and her father.You do non do, you do not do/Anymore, black shoe, proclaims Plath in the opening lines of Daddy (222), introducing the world to her father, ominous in the color black and consistent in his inability to do anything for Plath anymore. This limning of the father as an shoe instead of a man also presents Plaths deft use of imagery to color the character of her father, this time with the feel of a black shoe. This image makes the father sound stifling (Slayer 1).The imagery of the black shoe is also powerful in explaining the nature of Plaths posthumous relationship with her father. Shoes usually protect the foot, provide warmth for it (Goelzhaeuser 1). Shoes in the poem, however, do not invoke the sheltering, caring ... ...ountry. However, it seems likely that she died as she lived, taken up(p) by a combination of the two, her deceased father pointing out her failures from far away in her childhood and her substitute husband becoming another(prenominal ) one of those failures from another womans apartment. The imagery of Daddy, of her father and her husband, each her protector and her abuser in one, stands a testament of words to just that. whole shebang Cited Barnard, Carolean King. Sylvia Plath. Boston Twayne Publishers, 1978. Goelzhauser, Nicola. Imagery in Sylvia Plaths Daddy. Online. http//www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/8984/daddy.htm. Oedipus Complex. Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. 1993. Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. NewYork Harper Perennial, 1972. Sylvia the Vampire Slayer. Online. http//members.aol.com/raisans/plath.htm. Use of Imagery in Daddy by Sylvia Plath Essay -- Poetry AnalysisAs a modern female poet, Sylvia Plath played many roles in her art she was the fragile feminist, the confessional writer, the literary innovator. As a woman, Plath found herself with one foot in her past and the other in an uncertain future, her present an often uncomfortable combination of the two. She was at once a daughter desperate to make her parents proud and a wife eager to please her husband an overworked, depressed teenager and a lonely, sick mother a child who lost her father and an adult who lost her hope. Plaths confusion between her memories and her fantasies produced the creative inspiration that spawned much of her work the losses she suffered had the same effect. The death of her father became a theme in her poetry on which Plath would often spin her words. In the poem Daddy, Plath uses imagery to compare her father to a shoe, God and a vampire, to establish similarities between her father and her husband and to describe the lack of communication between her and her father.You do not do, you do not do/Anymore, black shoe, proclaims Plath in the opening lines of Daddy (222), introducing the world to her father, ominous in the color black and consistent in his inability to do anything for Plath anymore. This depiction of the father as an shoe instead of a man also presents Plaths deft use of imagery to color the character of her father, this time with the shade of a black shoe. This image makes the father sound stifling (Slayer 1).The imagery of the black shoe is also powerful in explaining the nature of Plaths posthumous relationship with her father. Shoes usually protect the foot, provide warmth for it (Goelzhaeuser 1). Shoes in the poem, however, do not invoke the sheltering, caring ... ...ountry. However, it seems likely that she died as she lived, haunted by a combination of the two, her deceased father pointing out her failures from far away in her childhood and her substitute husband becoming another one of those failures from another womans apartment. The imagery of Daddy, of her father and her husband, each her protector and her abuser in one, stands a testament of words to just that.Works Cited Barnard, Caroline King. Sylvia Plath. Boston Twayne Publishers, 1978. Goelzhauser, Nicola. Imagery in Sylvia Plaths Daddy. On line. http//www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/8984/daddy.htm. Oedipus Complex. Merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. 1993. Plath, Sylvia. The Collected Poems. Ed. Ted Hughes. NewYork Harper Perennial, 1972. Sylvia the Vampire Slayer. Online. http//members.aol.com/raisans/plath.htm.