The Analysis of Female Oppression

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Both of the two poems, “Daddy” and “Say You Love Me”, discuss the relationship between female and male through the relationship between daughter and father, but they start from different views and use different tones which are an adult engulfed in outrage and a child scared of her father. Although they have different angles to express their points, they seem to challenge the traditional patriarchal society. In the early seventies and eighties’ society, women found themselves without the tools to deal with oppressive and controlling men. They were left feeling helpless and hopeless. For some women, the struggle was never resolved; while others took most of a lifetime. For a few lucky women, they were granted amnesty. The two poems describe women’s feelings of oppression and their battle to deal with the issues of this power imbalance. They also point out the struggle many women face in a male dominated society. The first poem is “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. Since her premature death in 1963, biographies, reviews, and critical essays on her poetry have proliferated, and she has become one of the most legendary and most discussed female poet among the contemporary poets. Plath is the pride of America, whose premature death is constantly mourned and felt sorry for. The conflict of “Daddy” is male authority and control versus the right of a female to make her choices and to be free of male domination. The relationship between the speaker and her father is very strong. Both the vampire and the Frisco Seal in the poem are certainly references to her father’s research and publication. “The vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year (72-73)”, the blood-sucking image, is suggested to her father’s study of parasites. San Francisco Bay is where he conducted his research on Muscid larvae. “Muscid Larvae of the San Francisco Bay Region Which Sucks Blood
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