Comparing the use of German/Nazi and Jewish imagery between ‘Daddy’ and ‘Lady Lazarus’.
In both poems Silvia Plath, the author gives a lot of contrast between the Nazi/German and the Jewish imagery. When we look at the first poem ‘Daddy’ you can immediately see how the persona’s father appears coded, first as the patriarchal statue, "Marble-heavy, a bag full of God / Ghastly statue with one grey toe." And then, shockingly, he becomes a Nazi, tormenting the persona who describes herself as a Jew. Plath could be talking about her relation with her father, but we know that these words were used to give us an image of what the person felt like as neither Plath was a Jew and even though her dad was from Germany, he was no Nazi. She wanted to show the readers she felt her father was never there for her, that she was scared of him, afraid of being mistreated. Many concentration images are used like ‘It stuck in a barb wire snare.’ Where the person feels she cannot speak because of the barb wire her mouth, again she uses German words like ‘Ich’. The persona then compares her father with Hitler ‘and your neat moustache’ and right after that he becomes a German fighter. The persona wanting to be with her father first tries to attempt suicide as this does not work she escapes of it by marrying a man with many of the father's characteristics ‘A man in black with a Meincampf look’.
