Thursday, July 2, 2009
Week 2 Question 1
Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy" is described best as confessional poetry, since confessional poetry is known as when the writer is able to express their deep, hidden feelings freely by opening up and also writing about a confession they may have. In the poem "Daddy", Sylvia is able to express her feelings for her father. She talks about how her Father had left her and she is unable to truly identify herself. She blames him for her feelings of self unawareness. In reality though, her Father had died when she was only eight years of age. Therefore, her Father didn't leave her on purpose. She blames him for her unsuccessful marriage which probably was just a result of her resentment toward men leaving her. In the end of her time she commits suicide, which may have been from the feeling of loneliness and neglect.
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Week 2 question 3
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think Chopin is saying about marriage in "Desiree's Baby"? Do you think Chopin is commenting on how a child affects/changes marriage? Why or why not?
Marriage is an everlasting bond between two people which also is a building block for a family and a healthy relationship. Marriage is based on love; it goes past the physical attraction and can overcome any instability in a relationship. In “Desiree’s Baby” the author starts off by describing Armand Aubigny’s attraction towards Desiree’s beauty, mesmerized with her charm he falls in love and marries her. Chopin illustrates how their marriage is based on a romantic love because Armand fell in love with Desiree’s superficial characteristics. Race playing a greater toll in the setting described in the short story, Chopin conveys that bloodlines and social status are more important than the bond that the couple holds. He easily discards the love for his wife and child over the need to have “blood purity”. In “Desiree’s Baby” marriage is portrayed more as an identity for Armand and his wife and baby as reflections upon himself. He married for a status in the community rather than the love of his family.
According to Chopin the child does affect their marriage because due to the child’s African decent, Armand compromised his love for his wife for the sake of his beliefs and social status. Blinded by the society’s negativity towards dark skin and a woman’s lower social standing, Desiree is automatically blamed for the child’s African decent. If he truly loved his wife for the person she was, he would not have put her in such disparity causing her to leave. The child affects marriage in a sense that he was proud to have a son because he had someone to carry his name after his death. Desiree exclaims “Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name”(663) He cared for the child merely because it benefitted his standing in society. The child represents the parents; any negativity upon the child communicates a fault on the parents’ behalf. Learning that his child was bi-racial was a mark on his status which he couldn’t accept and therefore was easily able to detach himself from his wife and child.
Week 2 Question 1
Sylvia Plath's poetry is considered "confessional poetry". Do a bit of investigation, find out what you can about confessional poetry and its roots, and explain how this poem conforms to that genre.
Confessional poetry originated in the mid-twentieth century and it is an autobiographical type poetry; private experiences and feelings about death, trauma, depression and relationships were addressed in this type of poetry. Sylvia Path was among the few best known confessional poets. Her writing falls in this category primarily because she writes exactly what she feels. In her poem “Daddy”, Sylvia addresses her father and relating her childhood memories to the Holocaust. She reflects hatred and conflicts with her father by comparing him to the Nazi’s in Germany. Her feelings towards her father are complicated as a result of the lack of freedom she was given for being a female. Oppressed by her father’s authority as a child and later by her husband as an adult, Sylvia’s poem is indignation of the lack of power she had as a child. The path of struggle that she had to endure due to her fathers’ young death is what stems her anger and resentment of the male figures in her life. As the poem reaches an end, it describes a period in her life where she is finally free from her husband and her father and is ultimately able to show an attitude of power. Sylvia is at last able to resolve her conflicts and end on a note that reflects her independent and peaceful self.
I agree that Plath's "Daddy" conforms with the genre of confessional poetry. She reveals herself through it - the self she sees, and she reveals her father through her eyes. Whether they are accurate statements does not matter, in my opinion because it is what she was feeling and it is what she is confessing.
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