The Speaker

The central character of “Daddy” is the poem’s unnamed speaker. She is a broad, complex figure, infantile in her babytalk and brash in her unabashed references to the Holocaust. Her use of the verb “Achoo” (5) and the nonsense word “gobbeldygoo” (42) suggest a regressive streak, while calling her friend a “Polack” (20) – as well as her unflinching references to the concentration camps – read as untransformed pain hurled in the reader’s direction. At the same time, her references to history and articulation of her mind’s wild machinations suggests the speaker is affected by childhood trauma. Plath attributes details from her own biography to this character, including her own father’s death, her suicide attempts, the reference to the Cape Cod beach where Plath spent time, and an actual photograph of Plath's father. These details all work to complicate the relationship between poet and speaker.

The Speaker's Father