Write a paper presenting your own interpretation of the Poem “Daddy” by sylvia Plath. In  your paper, compare your interpretaion of “Daddy” to the viewpoints in the articles you have  chosen.

Write on one of the topics below. Your paper should be at least 750 words: double-spaced,
12-pt. font, MLA documentation. Save your file in MS Word (.docx or .doc) or as Rich Text
Format (.rtf).
Use at least two critical articles from the library as additional sources. The articles may
come from professional journals, and they may be found on the Internet. Remember that all
quotations, paraphrases, and summaries MUST be cited in-text (see my file on MLA documentation,
as well as the chapter on this in Harbrace Essentials). Your paper will require a works cited
page.
Finding Articles:
• look at databases such as ProQuest, JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, and Wilson OmniFile.
These are great databases in which to conduct a search for articles. Remember that you are
looking for articles in FULL-TEXT or .PDF files.
• In doing your search, type in the author and title of the work you are interested in
interpreting. When browsing through the articles, look at as many as possible. And don’t
overlook articles that might seem, at first glance, too general; the title of the literary work
might not be in the article title, yet the article might deal with the work significantly.
Additionally, articles may be found in collections (bound in an edited collection as a book,
with a title page that reveals each article by a different author).
• Articles should come from journals such as Modern Language Quarterly, The Explicator, and
College English. You may NOT use sources such as encyclopedias, abstracts of articles, Cliff’s
Notes, Monarch Notes, or series such as British Authors. Also, overviews (summaries of literary
works) are NOT good sources; look for critiques!! Keep in mind that the Internet is filled with
unacceptable sources such as student papers, web sites put up by unknown people, etc.—you
should refrain from even looking at these places and concentrate on bona fide articles which
are published in bona fide academic journals.
• I expect you to e-mail me a list of your sources (title, author, journal title) for your
paper 2-3 days prior to the due date.

. Write an essay arguing that the mothers presented in “I Stand Here Ironing,” by Tillie Olsen.
“Everyday Use,” by Alice Walker and “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, are either good or bad models for
parenting. Support your point of view with additional articles from professional journals.

TOPICS: Choose one of the three topics below:
1. Choose one of the poems about fathers (by Hayden or Roethke) to argue that our feelings
about our fathers are complex, not simple. Support your point of view with additional articles
from professional journals.
2. Write a paper presenting your own interpretation of the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. In
your paper, compare your interpretation of “Daddy” to the viewpoints in the articles you have
chosen.
3. Write an essay arguing that the mothers presented in “I Stand Here Ironing,” “Everyday Use,”
and “Two Kinds” are either good or bad models for parenting. Support your point of view with
additional articles from professional journals.

Beginning the Writing Process:
• Once you have found your sources, take notes and highlight important passages. As you write
your rough draft, include quotations, paraphrases, and summaries from the articles and from the
literary work(s)—cite on a sentence-by-sentence basis as you write the rough draft. Remember
that you need a thesis statement which lists the three major points you are going to develop in
your paper.
• I will be glad to see your rough draft, provided you give me enough advance time (2-3 days
before the due date, at the LEAST).

Daddy
by Sylvia Plath

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