Plath & Hughes - 'Daddy' and 'The Shot'

Question 1

What is the main Plath argument in ‘Daddy’ ?

Answer 1

‘Daddy’ by Plath explores how her hurtful relationships with oppressive men triggered her desire for liberation from hurt by eliminating men from her life.

Question 2

What is the context sentence for ‘Daddy’?

Answer 2

Daddy’ reflects Plath’s unresolved grief over her father, Otto Plath, which caused her to develop a love-hate relationship with her father and men in general.

Question 3

What is the first quote for ‘Daddy’ para? What technique?

Answer 3

‘Black shoe in which I have lived like a foot… barely daring to breathe or Achoo,’

Simile

Question 4

What is the argument for ‘Black shoe in which I have lived like a foot… barely daring to breathe or Achoo,’

Answer 4

This tension with men is seen in Plath’s initial characterisation of her father as an oppressive force, through the simile, ‘Black shoe in which I have lived like a foot… barely daring to breathe or Achoo,’ conveying her feeling of entrapment by the memory of her father as well as the patriarchal expectations of the 1950s.

Question 5

What is the second quote for ‘Daddy’ Para? What technique?

Answer 5

‘I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare,’ Metaphor

Question 6

What is the argument for ‘I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare,’?

Answer 6

Despite this, Plath perceives her father as a god, and tries to connect with him, but is unsuccessful, ‘I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare,’ where the metaphor symbolises her inability to connect with him due to inability to speak his native German tongue.

Question 7

What is the third quote for ‘Daddy’ Para? What technique?

Answer 7

‘I have always been scared of you, with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo,’ allusions to Nazi military

Question 8

What is the argument for ‘I have always been scared of you, with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo,’

Answer 8

Her frustrating failure to connect with her father culminates in her sense of hostile persecution by him as conveyed in the allusions to Nazi military, ‘I have always been scared of you, with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo,’ characterising her father as a tyrannic figure in her life.

Question 9

What is the fourth quote for the ‘Daddy’ Para what technique?

Answer 9

‘I knew what to do. I made a model out of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look,’ allusion to Hitleer

Question 10

What is the argument for ‘I knew what to do. I made a model out of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look,’?

Answer 10

However, her persistent desire for a father figure results in her marriage to Ted Hughes, ‘I knew what to do. I made a model out of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look,’ where the allusion to Hitler implies that her father-replacement in Hughes is equally as oppressive for her.

Question 11

What is the fifth quote for the ‘Daddy’ para? What technique?

Answer 11

‘Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through,’ empathetic and assertive tone

Question 12

What is the argument for ‘Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through,’?

Answer 12

Her unfulfilling relationships with men in her life ultimately prompts her to desire separation from all men in empathetic declarations, ‘Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.’

Question 13

What is the concluding line for the ‘Daddy’ argument?

Answer 13

Thus, it is seen that ‘Daddy’ reveals how Plath’s trauma from past relationships with men have caused her to seek liberation from them.

Question 14

What is the main argument in Hughes’s ‘The Shot’?

Answer 14

Meanwhile, Hughes’ ‘The Shot’ collides with Plath’s perspective that she wanted liberation from men, but was instead self-destructively fixated on them to help fill the void of her dead father.

Question 15

What was the context for Hughes’s ‘The Shot’?

Answer 15

Hughes’s poem attempts to defend himself against the vilification by the media and feminists during the 1960s as the instigator of Plath’s death

Question 16

What is the first quote for ‘The Shot’ argument? WHat technique?

Answer 16

‘Your worship needed a god. Where it lacked one, it found one,’ metaphor

Question 17

What is the argument for ‘Your worship needed a god. Where it lacked one, it found one,’?

Answer 17

His opening lines, ‘Your worship needed a god. Where it lacked one, it found one,’ utilises a metaphor to reframe Plath’s view that she sought separation from men to his view that she was desperate to replace her father with other men, and resonates with Plath’s declaration that she ‘made a model of you,’ by making everyone fit the impossible standards of her father.

Question 18

What’s the second quote for the ‘The Shot’ para? WHat technique?

Answer 18

‘the elect more or less died on impact - they were too mortal to take it,’ hyperbole (try to do) /metaphor

Question 19

What is the argument for ‘the elect more or less died on impact - they were too mortal to take it’ ?

Answer 19

According to Hughes, Plath’s standards were impossible to meet as seen in the metaphor, ‘the elect more or less died on impact - they were too mortal to take it,’ indicating that all those, including Hughes, who come into romantic contact with Plath would metaphorically die, thus contradicting Plath’s assertion in ‘Daddy’ that Hughes was a ‘vampire’.

Question 20

What’s the third quote for the ‘The shot para’, what technique is used?

Answer 20

‘You were gold jacketed, solid silver, nickel tipped. Trajectory perfect,’ using metaphor

Question 21

What’s the argument for ‘You were gold jacketed, solid silver, nickel tipped. Trajectory perfect,’ ?

Answer 21

Hughes further shifts the blame for her death away by characterising her as determined to reconnect with her father in the afterlife, as seen in the metaphor, ‘You were gold jacketed, solid silver, nickel tipped. Trajectory perfect,’ colliding with Plath’s view that she wanted separation from her oppressive father.

Question 22

What is the fourth quote for the ‘The Shot’ para what technique?

Answer 22

‘For a long time vague as mist, I did not even know I had been hit,’ simile

Question 23

What is the argument for, ‘For a long time vague as mist, I did not even know I had been hit,’?

Answer 23

Furthermore, Plath’s determination to reach her father resulted in everyone else in her life being irrelevant, ‘For a long time vague as mist, I did not even know I had been hit,’ where the simile characterises himself as collateral damage from her destructive path to reach her father

Question 24

What is the fifth quote for the ‘The Shot’ para? What techniques?

Answer 24

‘In my position, the right witchdoctor might have caught you in flight.’ metaphor

Question 25

What is the argument for ‘In my position, the right witchdoctor might have caught you in flight.’ ?

Answer 25

However, Hughes characterises himself as blameless for Plath’s death, acknowledging his inadequacy to help save Plath through the metaphor, ‘In my position, the right witchdoctor might have caught you in flight.’

Question 26

What is the concluding sentence for ‘The Shot’ para?

Answer 26

Ultimately, it is seen that Hughes reimagines Plath’s perspective that she wants freedom from men into his view that she needed men in her life to replace her father, and that it was her obsession with him that led to her eventual demise

Question 27

What are the five quotes for Plath’s ‘Daddy’ argument?

Answer 27

1. ‘Black shoe in which I have lived like a foot… barely daring to breathe or Achoo,’
2. I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare
3. ‘I have always been scared of you, with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo
4. I knew what to do. I made a model out of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look
5. ‘Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through,

Question 28

What are the five quotes for Hughes’ ‘The Shot’ para?

Answer 28

1. Your worship needed a god. Where it lacked one, it found one
2. the elect more or less died on impact - they were too mortal to take it
3. You were gold jacketed, solid silver, nickel tipped. Trajectory perfect
4. ‘For a long time vague as mist, I did not even know I had been hit
5. In my position, the right witchdoctor might have caught you in flight.