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The cartoon above was published in <\/span>Playboy<\/span><\/i> (vol. 25, no. 2) in 1978, thirteen years after Sylvia Plath published her poem \u201cDaddy.\u201d The connection between these works comes from how they both bring to mind the Electra complex, the female version of the Oedipus complex. Both the woman in the cartoon and the speaker in the poem seek their father in their partners. The cartoon paints this as something quirky and amusing while the poem is deeply disturbing in its description of a father. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDaddy\u201d is often viewed as Sylvia Plath\u2019s most famous and controversial poem, according to Linda Anderson \u00a0(Anderson,182). While not explicitly feminist, \u201cDaddy\u201d is certainly critical of patriarchal dominance in society. In the last two stanzas, Plath compares both her husband and her father to inhuman vampires that she has killed. The poem is about a woman desperately trying to overcome the male dominance of society. The tragedy comes from the fact that even in death, a father has power over his daughter. When juxtaposed, the cartoon can be viewed as a simplification of Plath\u2019s ideas. Both women are controlled and exploited through their desire for a father. This allows the cartoon to be seen as something deeply tragic with the man reducing something deeply personal into a shallow means for sexual favors. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sources:<\/p>\n Anderson, Linda. \u201cGender, Feminism, Poetry: Stevie Smith, Sylvia Plath, Jo\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Shapcott.\u201d\u00a0The\u00a0<\/i><\/span>Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century English Poetry<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 edited\u00a0<\/span>by Neil Corcoran, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007: 173\u2013186. <\/span><\/p>\n Platizky, Roger. \u201cPlath\u2019s Daddy.\u201d <\/span>The Explicator<\/span><\/i>., vol. 55, no. 2, 1997, pp. 105\u2013107.<\/span><\/p>\n Playboy<\/span><\/i>, vol. 25, no. 2, Playboy, 1978.<\/span><\/p>\n Plath, Sylvia. \u201cDaddy .\u201d <\/span>Poetry Foundation<\/span><\/i>, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1992,\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span>www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems\/48999\/daddy-56d22aafa45b2<\/span><\/a>. Accessed 11\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Dec. 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The cartoon above was published in Playboy (vol. 25, no. 2) in 1978, thirteen years after Sylvia Plath published her poem \u201cDaddy.\u201d The connection between these works comes from how they both bring to mind the Electra complex, the female … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/files\/2018\/12\/Daddy3-1.jpg\")
The poem was written on October 12, 1962, the twentieth anniversary of her father\u2019s leg amputation and the day she learned Ted Hughes, her husband, had agreed to a divorce (Platizky, 106). This was also around the time of Adolf Eichmann\u2019s trial and execution, who may be the source of the poem\u2019s Nazi imagery. The poem mixes the personal with the impersonal to paint the father as an evil but beloved figure.<\/span><\/p>\n