Masculinity And Violence In Sylvia Plath's Daddy

In both literary pieces, the fathers have been denominated as barbaric males that had created a dysfunctional relationship upon their children. In the case of “Daddy,” Plath creates an environment enriched with violence and frightening. Through the poem, the father is being envisioned in terms of his dominance, cruelty, and authoritarianism. She compares the relationship with her father resembling the Holocaust/victim analogy, making him a Nazi and herself a Jew; which helps her in the dramatization of the unsettled war in her soul. In this poem Plath exhibits the tortured relationship between her and her father. She implicates the imagery of having to live in a "black shoe" for thirty years, cowering, "poor and white barely daring to breathe
Supporting the previous statement about both fathers being abusive males, Junot Diaz in “Fiesta 1980,” states “Papi pulled me to my feet by my ear” (Diaz 245). Papi, the father, is and adulteress womanizer, who at times is temperamental and drastically aggressive towards the punishment of his children. He endorses “different masculinity ideologies and struggle with varying degrees and types of gender-role conflict” (Addis 12). As the typical macho man, his only way of showing his masculinity is through violence, which made everyone in the family feel instead of respect, an intense and passionate hate towards him. Coming from a Latin American culture, enhanced the liberal actions of this father, exhibiting his controlling patriarchal character. According to Michael Addis, “traditional masculine roles emphasize self-reliance, emotion control, and power” (Addis 12), which in this case supports the idea of Papi being a reckless father. Either “Daddy” or “Fiesta 1908,” both give a special prominence to the way both narrators describe and manifest their feelings toward this oppressors patriarchal