Sylvia Plath’s poetry is well known for its deeply personal and emotional subject matter. Much of Plath’s poetry is confessional and divulges the most intimate parts of her psyche whether through metaphor or openly, without creating a persona through which to project her feelings, and through the use of intense imagery. Plath’s attempt to purge herself of the oppressive male figures in her life is one such deeply personal and fundamental theme in her poetry. In her poem, “Daddy”, which declares her hatred for her father and husband, this attempt is expressed through language, structure, and tone. (Perkins, 591)
Sylvia’s father, Otto Plath, was a German immigrant and an entomologist who specialized in bumblebees. Plath described him to a college roommate as “an autocrat . . . I adored and despised him, and I probably wished many times that he were dead. When he obliged me and died, I imagined that I had killed him.” (Perkins, 590) Plath’s father was a tyrant and ruled over her with an iron fist. Plath felt that her father, to suit his particular needs and whims, molded her. Plath’s relationship with her husband, poet Ted Hughes, was not much healthier. In 1962, after only seven years of marriage, Plath learned that

that her husband was having an affair. Two months later and five months before Plath committed suicide, Hughes left her for Assia Gutman. Plath had been subservient and coy towards Hughes, deeply loving and admiring him.

Hughes took Plath for granted and left her when he was no longer interested. She was devastated.

Plath felt oppressed and stifled by men throughout her life. The first stanza of “Daddy” conveys her feelings of domination by her father:

Plath uses similes and metaphors to describe herself as a foot being cowed by a black shoe- her father- in which she barely dares to move. Other very intense similes and metaphors such as "Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belson," and "I think I may well be a Jew" clearly show the feelings of anguish and hopelessness she felt under her father’s control.

In the poem “Daddy,” Plath announces her rebellion from the oppressive forces and ties that have held her back throughout her life. She denounces them all and frees herself of their demands in the last stanza: