sea” and attempting to comfort Sylvia by telling her that “he died like any man.” Plath alludes to the nature of her father’s death, “the gangrene (that) ate [him] to the bone”, in the last stanza. Otto Plath actually ignored an infection, and it eventually turned to gangrene, and then death. Suicidal images can also be seen in the last stanza, where Plath describes her “own blue razor rusting at [her] throat”, and dubs herself “the ghost of an infamous suicide”. Plath reveals a kaleidoscoped relationship between herself and her father as she bitterly refers to herself as her father’s “hound-bitch, daughter, friend”. Plath instills her own feelings of guilt upon the reader when she confides that “it was my love that did us both to death.” Again, she reiterates that not only her father, but that she too, is dead. By titling the poem “Electra on Azalea Path”, Plath compares herself to Electra, a mythological figure that was in love with her father. Sylvia Plath uses haunting images and a reminiscent tone to convey the feelings she experienced when visiting her father’s gravesite, and the shattering effect his death had on her. ...
