Why use Nazi Theme in the Poem - Essay Example

Under him, she faced abuse and lack of individualism. He always dictated her life, made her a foot in his boot. She used the Nazi theme for a number of reasons, which are discussed below. The boot is synonymous with the black shoes that were worn by the Nazi fighters in the time. She must have grown up in loathe of the huge shoes that they wore. A foot inside a shoe does not have a breathing space, as it remains squeezed inside suffocating to the time the wearer of the shoe takes it off. The young girl, under the rule of her father, was like the foot that is ever inside the shoe, which was only free when her daddy decided she could be free.

His death came as the much hoped for break, just like the foot gets a break when the boot wears off. Tragedy seems to have befallen her like a cursed woman. Not only did she grow up with an abusive father, she also married a man she described to have been equally similar as her father. Perhaps, she had been happy when her dictating father met his death. However, she was not as lucky, when unknowingly she married a man whose character resembled that of her dad. A Nazi boot grows old and wears out.

That is the celebration of the foot that is always held a captive inside the boot. However, this celebration is short-lived since the old boot is replaced with a new one and the torture goes on. Her only break from the whole tortures and misfortunes of life was by her suicide, a few years after pouring her sentiments in the poem, “Daddy”. Having grown up in the period of the Second World War, Plath must have had witnessed the horror and the agony of the Nazi soldiers. Either, she must have had witnessed its effects, if not having been affected by the era of the Nazi war.

The soldiers treated war victims with unwavering cruelty, without a slight consideration that they too were human beings. The mass murder of Jews at Holocaust is a confirmation of this.