Adrian Huerta

Professor Lago
ENG1500-15
Essay 1 Rough Draft
Literature is the oldest custom known to all people. Regardless of race, or nationality,
literature would continue to exist through people. With literature, people are able to express their
beliefs, anecdotes, and almost anything as long as it is within their writing capabilities. The
authors of these literature works spread their ideas through direct and indirect ways. Over time,
scholars began to analyze literature to decipher the authors hidden messages. The study of
literature has helped many professors teach analytical and critical thinking to their students.
Analyzing literature can further an individuals knowledge through the intense process of trying
to figure out what the author meant.
Through the advancement of technology, analyzing literature has become easier and
faster since the information was easily accessible. Thanks to the digital age in which we are now
in, millions of data can be accessed within seconds off a search engine such as Google.
Unfortunately, the advancement of technology has also had its fair share of flaws. One of these
flaws includes the long term effect it has left its users. Majority of the users come from both the
Generation Y and Generation which dates back to ______. The habitual use of technology has
led users to solely rely on technology for all aspects of their life. The advancement of technology
in the digital age has led to the decreased interest on literature and the increased interest in other
forms of literature such as social media.
Daddy by Sylvia Plath is a poem written in the 1960s. This poem goes in depth about a
female woman who is speaking to her father, whom she is trying to let go of his memory. Her
father was a German officer during World War II. She goes on to explain how she felt after the
war, and how her neighbors who knew her father was excited that he had passed away. The
author used many different literary devices to enhance and give a vivid image of what the
character is experiencing. In the first stanza, the narrator states, In which I have lived like a foot
for thirty years, poor and white, barely daring to breathe or Achoo.(___,Plath). The author
chose to use the foot as an example because a foot is always the lightest part of your body since
it is always covered with socks underneath your shoe. The imagery described above can relate to
how embarrassed and ashamed she felt about her family background. This can give in insight on
who her father was through his actions when he was alive.
Unfortunately, not all poems and lines are this easy to analyze. Some authors tend to use
allusions to help get there point across. Allusions are the reference to something famous such as
Plath used in her poem Daddy multiple times. In stanza seven, the narrator states A Jew to
Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen, (___,Plath) which are all well known Jewish concentration camps
during World War II. In the thirteenth stanza, the daughter describes the model she created of her
father by stating A man in black with a Meinkampf look. (____,Plath). Unless a person was
well informed on World War II or on Hitler, the average person would never be able to
understand what Meinkampf means in the poem. Due to the accessibility of the search engine
Google we can now search what Meinkampf means and try to analyze what the author
meant when choosing that particular word to describe her thoughts. Through Google we can
learn that Meinkampf was an autobiography written by Adolf Hitler. By understanding what
this word means, we can better understand the poem through the narrators point of view. We
can now understand that the daughter in the poem compared her fathers model to Hitler, thus
indicating that her father must have shared similar characteristics as him. That can also explain
why many of her neighbors were thrilled when her father had passed away. A final example in
which an allusion was used to better explain her point was on stanza eight. In this particular
stanza, the narrator states The Snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna are not very pure or
true.(____,Plath). By utilizing Google we can search not only what the author meant by the
snows and the beer but we can also search of a map image of the nearby cities. Through this
search we can better visualize how both cities surround Germany. When the narrator describes
how things are not true, she is really saying that there is more to what seems normal. With this
said, we can infer that she related this stanza to the mass killing of Jews that occurred within
Germany in the concentration camps without many German citizens ever being aware of what
was happening.
Without the accessibility of search engines, analyzing poems or any piece of literature
would be difficult and enduring. However, many authors such as Naomi Shihab Nye believe that
technology has helped in the decline of interest in literature. In Where Children Live, Naomi
writes about the process a child undertakes as he matures and grows older. Throughout the poem,
she begins to describe the stage a child reaches when he no longer plays as one. The narrator
states The heart never goes outside to find something to do. And the house takes on a new face,
dignified. No lost shoes blooming in the bushes. No chipped trucks in the drive. (____,Nye).
The narrator is giving the image that comes with children playing among them others. The lost
shoe in the bush symbolizes the games children would play that would lead up to someone losing
a shoe as they try to get through a bush, or possibly the chipped trucks that children would leave
behind in the drive way.
All these clich scenarios regarding children would be erased throughout time as social
media is taking over childrens childhoods. The mature child of Generation Z is now a victim to
the addictiveness social media can become. With so much information that the internet can
withhold, majority of kids leave their toys to become hooked on technology. The unexpected
days that come with being a child has now become (steady time period). This can be proven in
Naomis poem when she states Grown ups like swings, leafy plants, slow-motion back and
forth. (____,Nye). The plant in this case can be referenced to a pendulum swing in which both
move naturally in a slow motion back and forth. This can also be referenced to the lives that
children in newer generations are now expected to live with the result of being raised in the
digital age. No longer will they enjoy roaming around outside with their friends on summer days.
Roaming around on summer days helps an individual gain something that cannot be found in
books, nor the internet. This particular thing is the experience that one lives through which can
be used to help analyze literature or to better understand it. Instead they will spend their summer
days home, chatting and playing online games through social media with their best friends.
Their lives will be the same everyday just like the way a pendulum swing works, consisting of
the same rhythm or pattern.