Poem: Daddy
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.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I’m finally through.
The black telephone’s off at the root,
The voices just can’t worm through.
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
"Daddy," comprised of sixteen five-line stanzas, is a brutal and
venomous poem commonly understood to be about Plath's deceased father, Otto Plath.
The
speaker begins by saying that he "does not do anymore," and that she
feels like she has been a foot living in a black shoe for thirty years,
too timid to either breathe or sneeze. She insists that she needed to
kill him (she refers to him as "Daddy"), but that he died before she had
time. She describes him as heavy, like a "bag full of God," resembling a
statue with one big gray toe and its head submerged in the Atlantic
Ocean. She remembers how she at one time prayed for his return from
death, and gives a German utterance of grief (which translates literally
to "Oh, you").
She knows he comes from a Polish town that was overrun by
"wars, wars, wars," but one of her Polack friends has told her that
there are several towns of that name. Therefore, she cannot uncover his
hometown, where he put his "foot" and "root."
She also discusses
how she could never find a way to talk to him. Even before she could
speak, she thought every German was him, and found the German language
"obscene." In fact, she felt so distinct from him that she believed
herself a Jew being removed to a concentration camp. She started to talk
like a Jew and to feel like a Jew in several different ways. She
wonders in fact, whether she might actually be a Jew, because of her
similarity to a gypsy. To further emphasize her fear and distance, she
describes him as the Luftwaffe, with a neat mustache and a bright blue
Aryan eye. She calls him a "Panzer-man," and says he is less like God
then like the black swastika through which nothing can pass. In her
mind, "Every woman adores a Fascist," and the "boot in the face" that
comes with such a man.
When she remembers Daddy, she thinks of him
standing at the blackboard, with a cleft chin instead of a cleft foot.
However, this transposition does not make him a devil. Instead, he is
like the black man who "Bit [her] pretty red heart in two." He died when
she was ten, and she tried to join him in death when she was twenty.
When that attempt failed, she was glued back together. At this point,
she realized her course - she made a model of Daddy and gave him both a
"Meinkampf look" and "a love of the rack and the screw." She promises
him that she is "finally through;" the telephone has been taken off the
hook, and the voices can no longer get through to her.
She
considers that if she has killed one man, then she has in fact killed
two. Comparing him to a vampire, she remembers how he drank her blood
for a year, but then realizes the duration was closer to seven years.
She tells him he can lie back now. There is a stake in his heart, and
the villagers who despised him now celebrate his death by dancing on his
corpse. She concludes by announcing, "Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I'm
through."
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