Ideally everybody deserves to grow up with two living parents, however Plath was not given this opportunity as her father died when she was only eight. In the poem Daddy, Plath, as the speaker, is having a one-way conversation with her father expressing all her feelings, anguish and how she tried to compensate for his death. The poem itself bares no metaphorical reading, only a literal reading which is broken up into three parts.

A common technique that Plath uses in her poetry is the metaphor. An example of one lies within the first stanza of Daddy.

During these contemporary times, the patriarchal society can be thought of as non-existent, however males still have a slight dominance. Although in the era Plath lived in, male dominance was the norm and she criticised society for this. In the poem, the persona describes her husband as "A man in black with a Meinkampf look." This reference to Hitler when describing her husband sets up a parallel likened to the one between her father and Hitler positioning the reader to see how the two significant men in the persona's life led to her downfall. This is further reinforced with the lines "The vampire who said he was you | And drank my blood for a year." Metaphorically the persona describes how her life was being drained away as a result of a marriage, similar to that of how a vampire drinks the blood of their victims. It is evident that Plath fell victim to the patriarchal society with the two dominant males in her life making life a hell for her as she had to reject both of them saying "I've killed one man, I've killed two." The persona positions the reader to condemn the notion of the patriarchal society as it is damaging to females who have fallen victim under a male dominance.

Daddy is indeed a negative poem, one of many dark poems Plath has written. Never the less there is a great amount of power within the poem, a power from which Plath's feelings of her father have been expressed and one that condemns the patriarchal society. From her use of vivid imagery, metaphors, similes as major poetic devices, Plath has been able to evoke her ideas to readers worldwide.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1172
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)