Sunday, April 21, 2013

Is Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy" an autobiographical poem?

Plath's poems are often seen as being confessional and "Daddy" is commonly viewed as being merely an autobiographical attack on her enigmatic and difficult relationship with her father, Otto Plath ( with a dig a Ted Hughes thrown in for good measure).  This view is an underdeveloped one, however.


In terms of style we can see elements of her influence from Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell surfacing here but the key difference is that Plath created numerous personae in her works.  This sets it apart from the Confessionals and it is from this that a deeper reading becomes apparent.  In "Daddy" Plath cites the I-voice as being "a girl with an electra complex" and in doing so unleashes a more complicated Psychological element to the poem, which becomes clearly Freudian in places.


In short, the answer is yes and no.  She does, evidently, use autobiographical detail within the piece but to say it is wholly this is a limited assertion.  The best way to analyse her work is by considering different readings of her verse - Autobiographical, Pyschological, Mythological...and to question what issues/themes these ultimately reveal.

No comments:

Post a Comment

In Act III, scene 2, why may the establishment of Claudius's guilt be considered the crisis of the revenge plot?

The crisis of a drama usually proceeds and leads to the climax.  In Shakespeare's Hamlet , the proof that Claudius is guilty...