Summary (Magill's Survey of American Literature, Revised
Edition)  “Daddy” has an ironically affectionate title, for this
poem is a violent, discordant attack on the dead parent. One of
the poems Plath wrote in the feverishly active last six months
of her life, “Daddy” is a reworking of the evil-father theme so
prominent in her poems. Because her father died when he still
had mythic power to the child, the woman must deflate and
exorcise the father figure somehow. She must go through a
symbolic killing of the powerful ghost in order to be free.  In
contrast to the subtle rhythms of her earlier work, this poem’s
movement is direct and obvious. It uses harsh, insistent rhyme
to hammer its message home. Its banging, jangling rhythms
unnerve the reader and lodge in the mind. It relies on one
repeated rhyme, an “oo” sound that becomes a cry of pain. Read
aloud, the poem sounds like a chant, a ritual chant of exorcism
and purification. In this poem and some others, Plath seems to
be using words for their apotropaic