Violence and Gender

A central theme in “Daddy” is the violence Plath attributes to gendered hierarchies. Shocking images of homicide and genocide describe the gendered battle the speaker experiences herself, locked in unrelenting abusive relationships with her father and husband. At stake in this struggle is her ability to speak and her very existence – two things this speaker ultimately links to suggest her struggle for survival under patriarchal control.

The speaker seeks terms to authentically express the female “I.” However, she lives in a world dominated by men in a fashion she compares to the Fascist ideology in Nazi Germany. Fascism sought to silence and eradicate any opposing ideology. And as Nazi is to Jew, according to Plath, man is to woman, and Daddy is to the speaker. That paternal world is littered with tanks, terror, and concentration camps, so the speaker adopts violence in turn, killing...