her lifelong depression and sadness in the male-female relationships of her poetry Let us take a closer look below Toxic Relationship In The Rival Plath talks about her toxic relationship with her rival who could be her husband Ted Hughes She compares the rival to the moon She says both the moon and the rival are beautiful but destructive The moon has no light It borrows from the sun Just like this the rival also takes attention and glory from others As she writes Both of you are great light borrowers So a male-female relationship can become toxic if there is no true love or care It can be full of selfishness Pain and Suffocation In The Rival Plath also shows that close relationships can be full of pain emptiness and suffocation She writes I wake to a mausoleum She feels as if she is waking up in a mausoleum tomb but her rival does not care She feels lifeless or empty in her rival s presence Moreover she compares the rival s criticisms to regular letters The letters seem white and blank But they are actually like carbon monoxide a deadly suffocating gas These images show that the relationship between the poet and her rival is full of pain and suffocation Her male rival her husband is uncaring She feels lonely and feels like dying in this relationship The Partner's Influence In The Rival Plath shows it can be difficult to escape a dominating partner's influence No matter where the rival goes even far away in Africa the poet cannot escape his influence She feels that no day is free from the news of the rival No day is safe from news of you So this poem suggests that in a male-female relationship full of carelessness rivalry jealousy and selfishness there is no true love or happiness Power and Fear in Relationships In Daddy she shows how men often hold power over women She shows the father as a very strong and frightening figure She compares him to a Nazi and herself to a victim of the Holocaust This means he had complete control over her and made her afraid She writes I have always been scared of you Panzer-man These lines show her deep fear Through this Plath also criticizes a male-dominated society where women are often oppressed or silenced Breaking Free In Plath s poems the struggles between men and women often lead to a wish to escape In Daddy the speaker finally decides she will no longer live under her father s control At the end of the poem she clearly says she is done with him This shows her strong desire to be free from male domination In conclusion Sylvia Plath s poems show the dark side of male-female relationships They are full of fear pain rivalry and control Through her personal emotions Plath gives us a truthful picture of troubled relationships