The father, the mother and the daughter : analyzing divine figures in three poems by Sylvia Plath

Abstract

Sylvia Plath is a writer from the XX century who is mostly known for her work in Confessional Poetry, a style of poetry focused on her personal experiences with great intimacy and depth. The following paper, through a qualitative and interpretative methodology, seeks to analyze three of her works, “Daddy”, “Three Women”, and “Magi” through the lenses of the Christian Trinity and the lenses of revisionist mythmaking, which seeks to analyze the mythological figures and ideas involved in the creation of literary texts, including how they were utilized and reimagined in order to make the author's point. Through these two concepts, we look into how Plath takes the figures of the Trinity and reimagines them as a more intimate one, which is revealed as the texts are analyzed and its figures are humanized in their imperfections. The insights gained from this analysis contribute to the area of literary studies by encouraging readers to delve deeper into the mythological context surrounding the media they consume.