The Death of the Fathers (1962). Content and Description

The Death of the Fathers is a poem sequence published in 1962’s Book of Folly, which gives an overall impression of Sexton’s complex relationship with her father. It was written when Sexton was 42, 11 years after his death, and it reflects the poet’s complicated feelings about his place in her life. The man depicted in this sequence of memories is dashing, cruel, and repeatedly complicit in the loss of his daughter’s innocence. As she writes in section 4, though, he is not guilty alone: “we were conspirators, / secret actors.” Throughout the entire sequence, there is a sense of incestuous corruption that is being transferred from one generation to the next.

The first section, “Oysters,” recounts a time when, as she says, “the child was defeated.” Her childish reluctance to eat oysters is overcome under the tutelage of her martini-swigging father. His presence at “the death of [her] childhood” is causal. He has presented her with a challenge: “father-food” to consume. Her sensual, suggestive language re-creates the unappetizing task before her and leads to the center of the poem: “I swallowed.” As an initiation into her father’s secret society, eating oysters at the Union Oyster House represents for the narrator a loss of innocence and an acceptance, at 15, of the daughter’s familial and social roles.

The second section, “How We Danced,” continues the narrator’s account of significant interactions with her father. She recalls dancing with her father at a family wedding. The images reinforce the couple’s intimacy; they “orbited” “like angels washing themselves,” “like two birds on fire.” Her father leads—her role is to follow, of course—but after the center statement, “and we were dear, / very dear,” the images shift, and his presence is described as lurking, dangerous. In her memory, she dwells on the champagne they drank together and what was happening outside the intimate father zone.

The crystal, the bride and groom, and her mother dancing with 20 men provide background for the intimacy-turned-assault of her father’s inappropriate physical desire: “the serpent, that mocker, woke up and pressed against me / like a great god and we bent together / like two lonely swans.”

In “The Boat,” which follows, the young narrator captures vividly a close encounter with death in a speedboat being driven dangerously fast by her father. The father’s role is again destructive; he puts his family’s lives in danger. Sexton’s images are unexpected: She tumbles “like a loose kumquat,” and the occupants of the boat are “scissors” that cut through the sea. Colors and textures are memorable, including waves as boulders, the sea as a “pitiless” “green room.” With her, we hold our breath underwater (emphasized by repetition, “Under. Under. Under.”) until they surface. She knows that they have been “clasped” by a “cold wing,” but death holds no appeal for her at that age. “The dead are very close,” but she does not belong with them yet: “You have no business. / No business here.”

“Santa” and “Friends” continue the recollections of times her father has failed her and chronicle the narrator’s descent into corruption. Images are increasingly sexual, emphasizing her physical pain as well as her emotional distance from her father-protector.

The final, long section deals with Sexton’s concern that her father was not, indeed, her real father. In “Begat,” she tells the story of the “monster of doubt” that has arisen. Her images are sharp and biological, full of pain and disillusionment as she questions her conception, her history, and her identity.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Examine the descriptive images in “Oysters.” How has Sexton conveyed her distaste as well as her delight to be part of her father’s world?

2. How do the word choices and sentence composition in “The Boat” provide an appropriate voice for describing the incident?

3. Compare the images that Sexton associates with her father with those with which Sylvia Plath portrays her own, in “Daddy.”