I Wanna Be Special : Plath and Nazi Germany.

The first 200 words of this essay...

I Wanna Be Special : Plath and Nazi Germany

E. Michele Bradley (200106335)

Sylvia Plath is a poet who writes in a confessional style. Her poetry shows her strong opinions towards patriarchy. By examining her works and researching her past, one can see that the two prominent male figures in her past are her father and Ted Hughes, her husband. In her poetry Plath uses Nazi Germany as a metaphor for the oppressive system of patriarchy women live under, while she portrays the victim as Jews. Two examples of poems where this appears are "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy". Because the Holocaust is such a sensitive subject, there are two schools of thought to Plath's metaphor. One belief is that she belittles the Holocaust. The other belief is that a metaphor is simply a metaphor. Obviously, Plath has no first hand knowledge if she uses the metaphor so trivially.

There are aspects of Plath's works that people may find hard to understand if they don't know about her history. To understand Plath's poetry, one has to understand Plath. Sylvia Plath writes confessional poetry. Because she writes in this confessional style, those who study her work must become familiar