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Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”

Like “Daddy,” “Lady Lazarus” was written in 1962 and first published in Plath’s posthumus collection, Ariel in 1965. It features a similar, quasi-autobiographical speaker. Though less specifically focused on the speaker’s father, the poem does issue a powerful cry against the cruelty of patriarchal power.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Plath’s only novel, published the year of her death, in 1963. The Bell Jar is an autobiographical account that draws on her experience of institutionalization after her first suicide attempt at the age of twenty. Plath references this experience in the twelfth stanza of “Daddy.”

Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz”

Like Plath’s “Daddy,” Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” (1948) features an adult speaker looking back on a traumatic experience involving his father. Though very similar in subject matter, the poems differ greatly in tone. The fact that Roethke’s speaker is male also offers a useful comparison in terms of gender.

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