Would you consider sylvia plath's daddy to be an expression against the voice of patriarchy ?comment critically
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Answer:
Sylvia Plath was a famous American poet and novelist. Her poetry was regarded as confessional poetry and 'Daddy' is a typical example of it. According to me the poem is an expression against the voice of patriarchy in two ways:
a) There are many images in the poem that suggest her hatred for her father.
- The hatred may not be directly about the man but the suffocation she may have experienced under the father-figure during her growing up year.
- Even though her father died when she was eight, she may have experienced the loss for 'thirty years' as mentioned in the poem.
- Many suggest that she was experiencing Electra complex, a Freudian concept opposite to Oedipus complex which is love for the parent of the opposite sex, in this case for father and mother respectively. Hence the memories of her father may have tortured her and she says 'Daddy, I have had to kill you'.
- She was also a rebel through out her life and may not have liked the authority of the father.
b) The poem also is replete with images of World War II which she had experienced when she was a child.
- Her father and mother were of German and Austrian origin. She may have used the war images to compare her father's authority to that of the Nazis.
- Another idea is the 'war' is 'patriarchal'. Many consider that wars happen because of the male ego and the superiority of man. In this poem, the superiority of he Aryan race and the ego of Hitler has led to the World war.
- Stanza 9 has a description of Hitler as she compares him to authority and cruelty.