"Daddy" in a Cheeseburger!

In her poem “Daddy”, Silvia Plath uses vivid imagery and metaphors to express her relationship with the men in her life. Using Nazi and Jew imagery as a metaphor, she is able to communicate to her readers the trauma of the oppression of her father and husband. She takes images of concentration camps, prisons, stomping feet, and swastikas and associates them with her father and husband while she compares herself to the Jews, the victim. “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” (1-5). The many Nazi images that she uses, accompanied by a lot of symbolism incorporated into those metaphors build emotion and sympathy for the reader. The symbolism is important in expressing her ideas because certain symbols she uses are widely recognized and have attached emotions and relations. Using such extreme symbols and images is what allows her to express how traumatic her experience was.


Revised
In her poem “Daddy”, Silvia Plath applies vivid imagery and metaphors to express her relationship with the men in her life—her father and husband. Using Nazi and Jew imagery and symbolism as a metaphor, she is able to communicate to her readers the trauma of the oppression forced upon her by her father and husband. She builds emotion and tension between images of concentration camps, prisons, stomping feet, and swastikas and associates them with her opressive father and husband while she compares herself to the Jews, the tortured victim. “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” (1-5). The many Nazi images that she uses, accompanied by a lot of symbolism incorporated into those metaphors build emotion and sympathy for the reader. The symbolism is important in expressing her ideas because certain symbols she uses are widely recognized and have attached emotions and relations. “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” (46-50). These symbols and imagery such as the Swastika, the idea of the Fascist, a black boot, and the color black are symbols that have a universal and cultural understanding and emotions attached to them. Through the utilization of these symbols and imagery she can transfer her emotions to her writing, and then to her reader. Using such extreme symbols and images are what allow her to fully express how traumatic her life with her father and husband was.

A problem with my first paragraph was that I didn't use enough examples and explanation of those examples to argue the point of the paragraph. Also, I argued in more of a general sense, rather than on close reading. In the revised paragraph, I added more quotes and explanation of those quotes and I tried to delve deaper into how the symbolism effects the close reading and emotion of the poem. I think that the revisions helped to build the argument more, but I felt that I wasn't able to incorporate enough close reading into the broader argument.