~Luna Dreams~

I agree with you on this reading. It did get to my heart, it seems to build up strong hatred aimed at someone. I had similar thoughts about this poem. The Dachau was one of the first gas chambers, if not the first one, opened under hitler. Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. The Dachau Concentration Camp officially opened on Wednesday, March 22, 1933, six weeks later.

Hey now, no crying over homework, Tiff... :-)

I can understand that you were bothered by the poem; I'll declare that it is not my favorite... But I really don't think that it's about a German soldier at all. *politely disagreeing*

I thought that it really was about her father--that her father was not good to her, that they didn't have any sort of substantial relationship, that she clearly didn't want to have anything to do with her father.

Moira brings up some great points in her entry--go check it out. Also, Gina Burgese and I had discussed most of the poems verbally in the computer lab last night while we blogged... You might want to look at their perspectives, too. I didn't do a long entry on this poem, but I don't really think that it's about the Holocaust. Despite the fact that it makes references to the German language, Aryan characteristics, and even "Meinkampf" the poem was written in 1963, so I honestly think that unless it was an exploration of the history at the time, it's not about the Holocaust.

Karissa ~

I could be that this person found out about her father later in her life. She did not necessarily have to know who her real father was. I know that a friend of mine has lived for 25 years thinking her father was one person when really it was another. Life takes people in many different directions. This is what makes poetry so fun to look at. The differences between what people believe to be true and what the author intended to be true are often two very very different things. Therein lies why we discuss them.

I agree with Karissa - I don't see this as about a German soldier either... I did some research on Sylvia Plath's background and found that her father was of a German background and died when she was nine - I posted about that here:

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MoiraRichardson/007961.html

Thanks for the back-up, Moira.

Tiffany, I think poetry is definetly open to discussion. We can never truly know what the author had in mind unless s/he comes right out and tells us in an analysis or anthology or otherwise...

I appreciate that you've taken my viewpoint into consideration--and I can sort of see with the clues you've noted how you can ellicit the vision of a German soldier. I still think that Plath knew her father: the very first stanza, line 3-4 says, "In which I have lived like a foot| For thirty years, poor and white..." Later, in stanza six, line 4 Plath says "I thought every German was you." Stanza 9 in the first line: "I have always been scared of you..."

I tend to think that with these descriptions that there was a relationship, although not a good one. I recognize your presented situation of not knowing a father, but thinking that you "know" a person that people tell you about... I somehow don't think that is the case in this poem, either. Call me Devil's Advocate in this case, if you'd like :-)

Just because she thought every German was him doesn't mean that she knew him. She could have been told that her father was a German, or seen a picture of him, and therefore was looking for a person that fit the description. That also constitutes the thinking that she could be scared of him because of the picture or the discription that was given to her.

I understand that you are playing Devil's Advocate, but at the same time I have to back myself up. I think what we are seeing here is two completely different viewpoints on the way a poem can be taken.

Yep--two viewpoints of the same story in the same poem. I love perspective, don't you? :-) Way to make conversation, Tiff!