Sylvia Plath was a great American poet gaining her fame and recognition in the twentieth century, after her death. The young poet was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in the kitchen, with her head in the oven. After this occurrence the gifted writer spawned a lot of attention and interest toward her life and work. Regardless of the reason of how or why she gained the attention, getting to know her past, history and biographic facts will help to get a better understanding of Sylvia's poetry. The majority of her poems deal with death and suicide, self-destruction, depression and painful feelings that women experience throughout life. She uses a lot of violent and harsh imagery in her poems, metaphors and descriptions on how she struggles to escape oppressive male figures in her life, like her father Otto and husband Ted Hughes. It is in fact that one of Plath's central themes in poetry is women being haunted by the male domineering nature. Her personal affliction and suffering is visibly exhibited in her work. A great deal of her worries and fears come from her damaged relationship with her father.
In her poem "Daddy", 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 she is trying to "kill" or forget the memory she has of her father. The speaker is trying to get distant from a father who was very strict and dominant. Bur yet, still wants to know the root of her German heritage, she is trying to find the name of the town where he came from "But the name of the town is common"-line 19.
