Silvia Plath Figurative Language

In a male-dominated world, women can express their feelings through poetry, books, journals, and so on… The two poems that particularly stood out the most are ones done by Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” and Silvia Plath’s “Daddy.” In the time period Maya Angelou and Silvia Plath lived, they both lived through oppression and discrimination due to being a female in a world run and influenced by men. Although “Still I Rise” and “Daddy” both explore persecution and discrimination, they use linguistic techniques and use different allegorical language to summon inferior sentiment, collocated with enraged and wrathful tone that contribute to the repetitious sound. These well composed poems will heavily show in juxtaposition that the theme to both are

An example of this is “But Like dust I’ll rise” (line 4). In similar fashion, in the poem “Daddy,” the metaphor is demonstrated when the speaker vocalizes about vampires. She is comparing her husband as the vampire sucking the life out of her (Green). For instance, Plath states “Vampire sucked my blood for seven years” (line 71-73). The figurative language plays a role in the tone of these two

In “Still I Rise” the speaker is enraged and wrathful of how much society hates her for the color of her skin (Green). Historically, in the 1960’s people were very much prejudice if you were colored. This is demonstrated with the phrase “History’s Shame” (Angelou, line 29). In the same way, the poem “Daddy,” enraged and wrathful are exhibited by the speaker that her father treated her so badly for years, and he tried to oppress her while doing so (Green). Heavily sopped with rage, the speaker wishes she could have killed her father before death took him away (Plath). “I have had to kill you, you died before I had time” (line 7, 8). The tone in “Still I Rise” and “Daddy” reflects the theme for both