BERNABE 1

Phonological Analysis of the Vowels used in Daddy by Sylvia Plath

Daddy is a poem written by the American poet, Sylvia Plath. It was published in
1965 after poets death as a part of Ariel, a compilation of her poems. The poem describes
how the young Sylvia saw her father, Otto Plath who had died when she was just an 8year old girl (Academy of American Poets). In her poem, we see what kind of
relationship she and her father had which may be described as one based more on fear
than on love. She compares her father to different vile things such as a Nazi or a vampire
to describe the terror she had felt growing up with an authoritarian father. The feelings
she had towards her father lasted even after his death and affected her to the point that she
had attempted to commit suicide, as confessed in the poem (Shmoop Editorial Team).
Sylvia Plath uses many poetic devices such as symbols and imagery, to bring out
the true meaning of the poem (Shmoop Editorial Team). This paper will focus on how
Plath used the different sounds of words, particularly the sound of vowels, as poetic
devices for conveying meaning. The analysis of this poem will be done by first,
transcribing the words of the poem into IPA characters. The similar vowels will then be
grouped in order to show which she used the most and how she used these sounds as
poetic devices. The discussion will end by touching on how these poetic devices affect
the emotions and meanings in the poem.
The poem is composed of 16 free verse stanzas with 5 short, impactful lines. In
order to achieve this the poem was transcribed with the aid of the Collins English
Dictionary, the Collins German dictionary for the German words, and the IPA translator

BERNABE 2
from InternationalPhoneticAlphabet.org. The full phonetic transcription may be seen in
Annex A.
The total number occurrences of each phoneme were counted in order to
determine which were used most by the poet. It was found that among the vowel sounds,
[ ] was used the most, totaling in 109 occurrences. This is followed by [] with 79
occurrences, [u] with 77 incidences and then by [] with 72. This discussion will only
focus on these four vowels since these have deviated the most from the average number
of occurrences which is 38 (this was computed by finding the mean of the total number
occurrences for each vowel sound). Table 1 shows the number of occurrences for each
vowel arranged in descending order with the last row showing the average score of all the
vowels.
vowel

# of occurrences
109
79
77
72

55
42
41
37
37
29
24
22

e
a
a

Average

21
5
5
3
1
38.76

Table 1. Number of Occurrences per Vowel in the poem Daddy

BERNABE 3
[] is called a schwa which is used to represent vowels in syllables which are not
emphasized in speaking and whose duration is very short (Fromkin, Rodman and
Hyams). This description rings true in the poem as we see this phoneme in syllables
which are not stressed in the words such as in devil, never, and engine. [] is a high, front,
lax vowel (Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams). In the poem, it is evident that [] is mostly
seen in the commonly used words in the English language such as in, is, it, and with. [u]
is a high, back, rounded, tense vowel (Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams) and may be seen in
the poem in repetitions like the first line of the first stanza, You do not do, you do not do.
Lastly, [] is a low, front, lax vowel and seen in the poem in words like as, have, and
had.
In the study titled The Relative Frequency of Phonemes in General-American
English (Hayden), Rebecca Hayden finds what phonemes are most used in the English
Language. Through her research, she had found that among all vowels, [], [], and []are
the three most frequently used vowels in American English. Annex B shows the results of
her study. This may be the reason why these 3 vowels are have a high incidence of
occurrences in the poem. What can be observed, however, is that the vowel [u] is not
among the vowels which are most frequently used. In fact, [u] only comes in 8th
according to Haydens research.
It may then be said that the Sylvia Plath has purposely used words which have the
phoneme [u] in order to convey a message or add to the feeling of the poem. The question
now is, what was the purpose behind the use of these words?
According to a study on language development, babies can make goo-ing
sounds as early as 2 months old and at 3 months, they start making the elongated vowel

BERNABE 4
sounds of oooos and aaaas (Owens). The phoneme [u] is similar with the ooo
sound that babies make. By repeatedly using words which use this phoneme, the author
makes the one who read the poem sound childlike, and this may be the effect that Plath
had intended for the poem.
Paul Breslin, in his analysis of Daddy, says that the obsessive repetitionof the
rhyme-sound oo, evokes the doggerel of playground chantsor the stubborn reiterations
of a temper tantrum (Breslin). Charles Molesworth, in his study, commented that the
insistent rhyming of the ou sound, and the toneserve to mimic and perhaps exercise a
childs fixation on authority, self-hatred, and guilt (Molesworth).
Various scholars have commented on the repetition of the [u] sound in Daddy and
they have given different interpretations of it. What they have in common, however, is
that they connect it to childhood. The poetic device of repetition of the sound [u] was
used along with childlike words like gobblydygoo or achoo in order to induce the
reader to put himself or herself in the situation of the speaker of the poem, who is a child.
This allows the reader to empathize better because, given this feeling of smallness, he/she
will see how large the character of Daddy is, as perceived by the speaker. The
repetition of the sound [u] also contributes to the sing-songy tone of the poem which
contrasts, and in effect, emphasizes the dark narrative behind the poem.
ANNEX A
Phonetic Transcription of Daddy by Sylvia Plath
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot

ju du nt du ju du nt du
ni mr blk u
n w a hv lavd lak ft

BERNABE 5
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

fr rdi jrz pur nd wat

brli dr tu bri r au

Daddy, I have had to kill you.

You died before I had time
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

ddi a hv hd tu kl ju
ju dad bfr a hd tam
mrbl hvi bg fl v gd
gstli stu w wn gre to
bg z frisko sil

And a head in the freakish Atlantic

Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

nd hd n frik t lntk
wr t prz bin grin ovr blu
n wtrz f utfl nst
a juzd tu pre tu r kvr ju
ak du

In the German tongue, in the Polish town

Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

n rmn t n pl tan
skrept flt ba rolr
v wrz wrz wrz
bt nem v tan z kmn
ma polk frnd

Says there are a dozen or two.

So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

sz er r dzn r tu
so a nvr kd tl wr ju
pt jr ft jr rut
a nvr kd tk tu ju
t stk n ma

It stuck in a barb wire snare.

Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

t stk n brb war snr

a kd hrdli spik
a t vri rmn wz ju
nd lgw b sin

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

n nn n nn
tfi mi f lak u
u tu dka wts belsen
a bgn tu tk lak u
a k a me wl bi u

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

snoz v tarol klr br vvi n

BERNABE 6
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

r nt vri pjr r tru

w ma psi nsstrs nd mawrd lk
nd ma Taroc pk nd ma Tarocpk
a me bi bt v u

I have always been scared of you,

With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You

a hv lwez bn skrd v ju
w jr luftwf jr gobbledygoo
nd jr nit mst
nd jr rin a brat blu
pnzr mn pnzr mn o ju

Not God but a swastika

So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

nt gd bt swstk
so blk no ska kd skwik ru
vri wmn drz fst
but n fes brut
brut hrt v brut lak ju

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,

In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

ju stnd t blkbrd ddi

n pkr a hv v ju
klft n jr n n std v jr ft
bt no ls dvl fr t no nt
ni ls blk mn hu

Bit my pretty red heart in two.

I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

bt ma prti rd hrt n tu
a wz tn wn e brid ju
t twnti a trad tu da
nd gt bk bk bk tu ju
a t ivn bonz wd du

But they pulled me out of the sack,

And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

bt e pld mi at v sk
nd e stk mi t gr w glu
nd n a nu wt tu du
a med mdl v ju
mn n blk w mankampf lk

And a love of the rack and the screw.

And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, Im finally through.
The black telephones off at the root,
The voices just cant worm through.

nd lv v rk nd skru
nd a sd a du a du
so ddi am fanli ru
blk tlfonz f t rut
vsz st knt wrm ru

BERNABE 7

If Ive killed one man, Ive killed two

The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

f av kld wn mn av kld tu
vmpar hu sd hi wz ju
nd drk ma bld fr jr
svn jrz f ju wnt tu no
ddi ju kn la bk na

Theres a stake in your fat black heart

And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, Im through.

erz stek n jr ft blk hrt

nd vlrz nvr lakt ju
e r dns nd stmp n ju
e lwez nu t wz ju
ddi ddi ju bstrd am ru

ANNEX B
Table from The Relative Frequency of Phonemes in General-American English by
Rebecca Hayden

BERNABE 8

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Academy of American Poets. Sylvia Plath. New York, n.d.
Breslin, Paul. The Psycho-Political Muse: American Poetry since the Fifties. Chicago,
1987. University of Chicago Press.

BERNABE 9
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams. An Introduction to Language.
Canada: Cenege, 2011.
Hayden, Rebecca E. "The Relative Frequency of Phonemes in General- American
English." WORD (1950).
Molesworth, Charles. The Fierce Embrace: A Study of Contemporary American Poetry. .
Missouri, 1979. Curators of the University of Missouri.
Owens, R E. Language Development: An Introduction. Boston: Pearson, 2005.
Plath, Sylvia. "Daddy." Ariel. 1965.
Shmoop Editorial Team. Shmoop. 11 November 2008. 9 July 2016.