I need help. I have to argue in a paragraph about whether "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath is surrealistic or not. I don't even know how to start it.
This is what I got so far. Is it good?
This poem to me, doesn’t really define the term surrealistic. Surrealistic is defined by Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream; also: unbelievable, fantastic. The poem is about; that she is craving for her father's attention, and yet she despises him in so many ways...she is in a love hate relationship. I don’t think Plath poem is even close to being surrealistic because in her poem, she mentions in lines 24-25 that…”I never could talk to you.” “The tongue stuck in my jaw”. This is not a dream; she is basically saying she was so scared of her dad, that she was too scared to talk to him. She mentions that her dad is the devil, which mainly suggest that he is mean in line 52-55, “You stand at the blackboard, daddy,…the picture I have of you,….instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not…. She not only tried to kill her father, but in the end of her poem, she calls her dad a “(expletive)”.
2 answers
Dictionary: Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.
Encyclopedia: Surrealism. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life.
This poem fits exactly into the surrealistic realm. The difference as Salvadore Dali said of himself being a surrealistic painter, of being mad and being surrelaistic, was he was not a madman. Others had differing opinions.
On great physicist that I know, once explained the concept of genius: Genius is having one leg over the line of sanity, and one not, but having control not to put both legs over at the time. I think Dali would agree with this, as would many surrealists. This poem certainly reflects that.
Punctuation throughout, as you try to deal with quoting lines of poetry, is very strange.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index2.htm
Scroll down to Literature (Writing About)and read that webpage, including how to quote poetry.
You should also read the section on Quotation Marks.