Daddy

The title “Daddy” suggests a child’s name for their father. This innocence immediately becomes complex when Plath bursts out with “Daddy, I’ve had to kill you” at the top of Stanza 2 (Line 6). This startling declaration refers to the killing of his memory but also seems to reveal that the speaker may actually desire to kill him, if he were not already dead, out of self-defense. Throughout the poem, Plath extends the metaphor comparing her daddy to a German Nazi and herself to a Jew: “I’ve always been scared of you/With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo” (Lines 41-42) with “Luftwaffe” referring to the German air force of World War II. His behavior is both foreign and frightening to her even though they are of the same blood, much like the Jews were forced to leave a homeland that began to despise rather than welcome them. This comparison is complicated by the speaker also comparing her father to a “bag full of God” (Line 8), implying how the young version of herself worshipped him. In Stanza 10, her adult self attempts to unravel her two perspectives with “Not God but a swastika” (Line 46).

“Daddy” has the feel of Plath talking aloud to herself or a therapist, working through her daddy issues, from her father’s early demise to the memories of her subservient role in his world—a man’s world.