1 Shannon Cassells ENGL 2520 5/8/13 Final

Plaths Path Away From Feeling Like A Victim

Many poets use great imagery in order to express their own feelings in relation to their reality. Imagery is a great tool to convey the emotions behind the words to the reader and allow them to experience it for themselves. Sylvia Plath is a poet known for her dark and beautiful imagery in her poems that still inspire readers today. Plath herself was a very dark individual who suffered from depression and ultimately took her life after her third attempt. A lot of her poems express her feelings and yearnings for death and choose to describe them in a way that has readers wanting more. Many readers are able to identify with Plaths sense of self or are able to experience her strong emotions such as feeling victimized. Plaths poem Daddy uses imagery of the Holocaust to describe her victimization she felt against her father and men. Plath clearly aligns herself with the victims of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is known for completely dehumanizing and brutally murdering millions of innocent people. Plath feels the depth of their despair and likens it to her own, An engine, an engine/chuffing me off like a Jew(31-32). She uses repetition in the word engine to create a sense of motion for the reader. The line gives a good sense of wheels turning on the trains that took the victims of the Holocaust out of their homes. Plath feels her experiences led to her feeling ripped from her comforts and brought her to this dark place in her mind. She uses a lot of images associated with the Holocaust like, The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a bar wire snare. ich, ich, ich, ich(25-

2 27). This stanza creates an uncomfortable image one of feeling trapped and hopeless. This is emulating exactly what the Jewish people in concentrations camps would feel but also how her father makes her feel. Her father is the central subject of the poem described as an awful man who makes Plath feel victimized. He is painted as, The boot in the face, the brute/ brute heart of a brute like you(49-50). Plath uses the word brute because it describes how he takes force, as the Nazis did. And your mustache/ and your Aryan eye, bright blue(44-45). Plath wants the reader to associate the typical brute Nazi who has no mercy on his victims. The reader effectively views her father as someone who probably did not treat her well. He is likened throughout the poem to evil men, and seen as not a nice man, despite the fact that Plath mentions he died when she was seven. This fact leads me to believe that she is using her father as an example for all of men, And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you. A man in black with a Meinkamf look(63-65). She uses the word model as a way of showing how she views all men. She used him as a model to express how she feels victimized as a woman in her society where men are on top. Plath feeling defeated by her father and despite the despair she feels, the poem does shed a little dash of hope. Plath gives a sense that she wont stand for what is happening to her anymore, Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, Im through(80). Sure, one person could interpret this as shes through with it all life, and hopelessness. I however see her sticking up against men and against the people who victimize her. She says, Theres a stake in your fat black heart/ and the villagers

3 never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you.(76-78). This image of villagers stamping on you is a triumphant one. I cannot help but attribute this to the many victims of the Holocaust coming out resilient. Plath wants the reader to be able to look brute force in the eye and not let them control you. That you should be stamping on any who victimize you. Plaths imagery of the Holocaust effectively exemplifies feeling victimized by men, but also ultimately claiming one can rise above it. This poem does an amazing job of using images of a dark time to express a girl lost in her word and feeling helpless in her life. Each description and stanza flows beautifully together while also conveying a message to readers to stand up to tyrants. Many poets use tactics like Plaths but not many can accomplish the same feel or style as hers.

4 Works Cited Plath, Sylvia. Ariel. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Print.