Close Reading of a Poem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Close Reading of a Poem - Essay Example You can almost see the speaker in the poem throwing tantrums at "daddy" blaming him for all her misfortunes. At best, the speaker in the poem did not attempt to hide her anger towards her father and her husband nor did she attempt to conceal her love for both men who tormented her and ruled her life for years. All throughout the poem, the speaker struggles to deal with her loss, her love and her hatred of her father. The speaker has unresolved issues against her father which she believed to be the root of all her sufferings and pain as an adult. Note that the speakers father died when she was ten so she never really had the chance to outgrow her fathers influence on her as most children do. In line 6 and 7 of the poem, the speaker said â€Å"Daddy, I have had to kill you / You died before I had time†. Her fathers death left a big hollow in the life of the speaker and she felt that even in death, her father still have influence over her. Actually, the idea of killing in the poem is more like a figure of speech. The speaker had always been scared of her father as a child and she wanted to get rid of the influence that her father had over her by "killing" her father. The idea of "killing" can be interpreted as "outgrowing" the influence of her father over her. Since her father died be fore she had the chance to breakaway from his domination, the speaker felt that she was trapped and unable to "kill" the feeling of being dominated. As the speaker in the poem reached adulthood, her feelings for her father remains almost childlike. If you take a closer look at the lyrics of the poem you will notice that the tone of the poem is purposely made childlike. Instead of addressing her father in a more formal tone that adults use, the speaker insistently called her father "daddy". At the time when this poem was written, adults usually refer to their fathers using the formal word "Father" and only little children venture to call their parents "mommy and daddy". What