Compare and contrast the concept of grief and its implications
The two works I would like to discuss in this essay are “The Red Convertible” by Louise Erdrich and “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. Grief is something that unites both pieces and is very strong emotional basis in them.
Sylvia Path uses her poem “Daddy” to show her deep emotions towards here father’s life sufferings and death. She uses very passionate language to put all her grief, rage, confusion and abandonment into her work. Her father was a Nazi soldier that was killed in the World War II while she was still very young. She was saying that she had no idea where he was killed in the battle; the only thing she had left of him is his picture. She speaks about how she chose a man to marry that remotely reminded her of the father to compensate her grief. Sylvia also expresses a dark anger toward him for his political views and actions in such passages as: “Not God but a swastika / so black no sky could squeak through” and “…the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you.” She goes on talk about how her poor or non-existent relationship with her father caused her to enter an unhealthy relationship. Finally, she conveys a mood of overcoming this man’s dark hold on her. She is still filled with unhealthy rage toward him but in her repeating that she is “through” and discussing having killed someone she demonstrates her feelings of self-empowerment.