Danielle Schenck

“Somebody is shooting at something in our town” : The Use of War Images in Sylvia Plath’s Poetry


The poet, Sylvia Plath, uses many images throughout her poems to emphasize certain ideas about her life. These images are important because they assist the reader in interpreting what she was thinking and what was occurring throughout her life. Sylvia Plath uses images of war in “Daddy” and “The Swarm” to emphasize her weakness and inferiority with death, her marriage, and the relationship with her father.

The idea of death was a very promising path for her. She demonstrated her feelings of death in her poems. In “Daddy”, she states “An engine, an engine, / Chuffing me like a Jew” (31-32). The Nazis, during World War II, had killed people who were considered inferior and weak in their standards. Plath sees herself as being “killed” for her inferiority. Similar to that is the quote, “Mud squirms with throats, / Stepping stones for French bootsoles” (“The Swarm” 13-14). Napoleon’s French troops sacrificed those who were in their paths. Usually, they “stepped” over the lesser ones who did not have any benefit to them. Plath continuously viewed herself as being a weak nobody who had nothing to contribute to anyone. Death, to Plath, represents a way to escape that weakness. The leaders of these wars gave death away like candy and showed no sympathy about it. People important to her throughout her life also showed no compassion and walked all over her like “stepping stones”.

Her marriage to Ted Hughs is an example of her being made to feel inferior by a loved one. This gave her the impression that marriage was a war. “A man in black with a Meinkampf look” (“Daddy” 65). Here, she portrays her husband to be an ordinary “Nazi” that abides by a set of rules, similar to Hitler’s Meinkampf. This position of power is superior to her own position as a wife and mother. Though, in “Swarm”, jealousy is apparent in the marriage and made it a war. “Jealousy can open the blood, / It can make black roses” (3-4) shows the pain that the war called “marriage” may cause, turning red roses black with no love. This idea that love and marriage is turned sour by war is a strong concept that is displayed by Plath in all of her poetry.

Sylvia Plath also had a troubled relationship with her father. They were close, but Plath struggled with the memories after his death. She frequently compares him to prominent war figures in her poetry such as in “Daddy” when she says “And your Aryan eye, bright blue” (44). Plath appears to be envious of the supremacy that her father has over her. These personality traits caused him to survive while she is dying inside. Also, “Napoleon is pleased, he is pleased with everything” (“The Swarm” 58). Her father was an authority figure to her, but Plath feels he is pleased with how everything has turned out after his death even though it may have been negative. Her father seems to have caused permanent scars on her, yet he is happy about it. These comparisons to war leaders with dark personalities demonstrate the agony that the people she looks up to have cast a dark shadow over her that made her feel timid.

Memories of her inferiority are apparent throughout her poems. This subordination is represented by the concepts of war that involve death, her marriage, and her father’s relationship with her. Images of war leaders, war casualties and the effect of war are used relentlessly throughout “Daddy” and “The Swarm”. From her use of war images, we can conclude that throughout her life relationships were constant battles to her and caused a great deal of pain.