... same consequence does towards their father. In the first stanza, Sylvia Plath refer to herself as a foot when and her father a shoe "you do not anymore, black shoe in which I have lived like a foot." Usually one would think that, a shoe is comfortable and it protects your foot ... , nevertheless Plath's poem illustrates her poetic strategy of vivid metaphor, imagery, rhyme, tone, and simile. Yet, later in the stanza ... she says "barely daring to breathe or achoo there it shows that Plath was not being protected by her father she in ... that her father was a strict being and she was no...

• Word Count: 736
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Sylvia Plath explores the figure of her father in a lyric way, and how he is no longer present to impose a dictation like he always did, which is clearly demonstrated in the first stanza of the poem: "You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor ... and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo". Next, in the second stanza the speaker says, "Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time" communicating how ... As she grows older, Sylvia tries to fill the hole her father left by searching for an authoritative and pow...

• Word Count: 646
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... because there are things she feels she can get away with saying as a child, which the constraints of adulthood would not allow her to do. In the beginning of the poem she rages against a father she feels has betrayed and abandoned her, "Daddy, I have had to kill you. You ... "If I've killed one man, I've killed two". (Revising Life, pg 48) There has been reference made to the black shoe in the first stanza, "Anymore black shoe in which I have lived like a foot" as representing her fathers amputation of his leg from complications of diabetes. This represents a symbol of oppression, of be...

• Word Count: 771
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... 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 ... by Adolf Hitler during WWII, and Meinkampf, Hitler's political manifesto, are used to characterize her father and husband as well as male domination in general. (Perkins, 594) The frequent use of the word black throughout the poem also conveys a feeling of gloo...

• Word Count: 1043
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School