Percy Chan

“Daddy you bastard I’m through”: Imagery in Sylvia Plath
“I have done it again. / One year in every ten / I manage it” (“Lady” 1 – 2). In many of her poems Sylvia Plath often writes about her experiences. She often uses imagery to convey her feelings and grab the audience’s attention. In Lady Lazarus and Daddy, Plath uses images of the Holocaust to portray her father, her pain, and her struggle for sanity.
During her life Sylvia was subject to many traumatic events, one of which was the death of her father. This traumatic experience led to a deep resentment and caused Plath to cling on to her memories of him. In Daddy, “Daddy I have had to kill you. / You died before I had time - - -“(“Daddy” 6-7). She expresses her ambivalence to her father’s passing, and she expresses a feeling of loathing of not having the chance to kill her father. Her feeling of loathing could be caused by her own feelings that her father had left her too quickly, and the feelings of abandonment eventually turned into contempt for his passing. Due to her father’s passing, Plath was somewhat confused at the world around her “I thought every German was you” (“Daddy” 29). In her depressed state, Plath was easily drawn to things that reminded her of her father. The Bee poems were written, with their topics about bees, a connection to her father’s last dissertation on bees. Eventually Plath decides to move on with her life, finally placing her father to rest in her mind. “Daddy, you can lie back now. / There’s a stake in your fat black heart / And the villagers never liked you” (“Daddy” 75 – 77). Besides her father, Holocaust imagery is also used to show her pain and depression.
One of the reasons Sylvia Plath wrote was to show people her feelings and pain. In her poem Daddy she shows the reader her desperation, and hints slightly at her own pain and suffering. “Of war, wars, wars” (“Daddy” 18), Sylvia puts the idea of war, which symbolizes her pain and her suffering. She uses not only the repetition of war, but the relationship between the Germans and Jews in World War II. “I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (“Daddy” 34 – 35). She places herself as a Jew, and is made to suffer at the hands of the German, who represents her father. In this instance she shows the audience a glance at her personal life, and how much pain she feels on a daily basis. Furthermore she shows instances in which she shows her want to die. “Peel off the napkin / O my enemy” (“Lady” 10-11), Plath has shows her face bandaged in linen, to be taken off by her enemy. She feels that she needs to die, and that she can accomplish her goal by causing herself pain and suffering. “I am only thirty. / And like a cat I have nine times to die” (“Lady” 20 – 21). Plath tells the audience she seeks her death, that the next attempt will be her third. She compares herself to a cat, how she has nine lives, and nine chances to die. She seeks death but is constantly saved “So, so, Herr Doktor. / So, Herr Enemy” (“Lady” 65 – 66), she ultimately learns to despise the ones who prevent her from reaching her goal, and brands them her enemies. Her rapid fall into her third and final suicide attempt was a struggle between her sanity and her suicidal insanity.
During the period leading to her final suicide Plath wrote about her father, and the pain she felt from losing him. However we can also see a small struggle to survive in some of her poems. “And they stuck me together with glue. / And then I knew what to do” (“Daddy” 62-63), Although her recovery from her suicide attempt is used in a negative light, it still shows a hint of Plath wanting to survive and live on. “Come back in broad day / To the same place, the same face, the same brute” (“Lady” 52 – 53), coming into broad day light, it represents her awakening, from the despair she had felt. Although she ultimately falls back into despair, because she sees the same things as she did when she was in despair.
There are many things the Holocaust imagery can come to represent, from Sylvia’s father Otto Plath, Sylvia’s depression and suffering, to her struggle for life. After reading her poems, the audience can find a new appreciation for confessional poetry, which in turn adds to the literary features used by the audience. The dark imagery of the Holocaust was a suitable choice for the feelings and experiences that Plath tried to convey to her audience, and in the end she is successful in creating lasting works to be looked upon by other confessional poets.