In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” both poets approach coming to terms with the memories of their fathers in two very different, yet also similar ways. Roethke’s approach seems to be to compartmentalize a negative -or possibly- violent relationship with her father by imagining it in the light of a “waltz.” This adds a level of innocence to the reader’s mindset about the poem before it is even read. Due to this, multiple read throughs would be considered necessary to understand the subtext of the narrative being presented. On the other hand, Plath’s poem, “Daddy,” is quite direct with her feeling towards her father. However, this piece is almost like the action of screaming into a pillow. It is more of a way…show more content… (1-5)” In this first stanza, Plath expresses that she no longer wishes to feel trapped like a foot in a “black shoe.” She states that she has been in this state for 30 years (the entirety of her life) “barely daring to breathe or achoo.” From this moment on, her poem moves from the perspective of her 30 year old self, into a the narrative of a childlike character. This quote then goes on to say that her feelings towards her father have remained locked tight inside herself, growing to the point where she is ready to let it all out. This is the first indication that the rest of this poem will continue to grow in anger as she gets deeper into her feelings about her father. In the next stanza, she starts off saying, “Daddy, I have had to kill you./ You died before I had time—— (6-7)” It is unclear what she means by, “I have had to kill you,” but, when she claims that he “died before ‘she’ had time,” (worth noting he died when she was 8) this leaves open a range of opportunity for what she meant by this. Plath could have meant that he died before she had time to kill him, or that he died before she got to experience life fully with him. Either way, Plath subtly expresses anger or regret that her father died while she was still young even though her intentions are unclear. From this, Plath then goes into an extended analogy that offers contradictory statements on how she feels. She…show more content… In fear of speaking the German language with her father, which she found putrid, she “ began to talk like a Jew. (34)” and she stated that she “may well be a Jew. (35)” She then turns from the descriptions of herself as a Jew during the Holocaust, to describing her father’s metaphorical role in the Holocaust. “I have always been scared of you,/ With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo./ And your neat mustache/ And your Aryan eye, bright blue. (41-44)” At this point in the poem, she imagines him as a German during World War II by saying she is afraid of him with his “luftwaffe” and his “gobbledygoo.” This luftwaffe being the German air force, and the gobbledygoo representing the meaninglessness of his German language from a Jewish perspective. Plath starts to directly blame her father as if he was a major cause of the Holocaust by attributing him to a major insult as a German, comparing him to Hitler. She does this by referring to her father’s “neat mustache,” and his “Aryan eye, bright blue.” These were descriptions used to describe Hitler by other Germans who saw his pureness as that above the
