lady lazarus analysis

enjoy this; it was from my AP lit class, but i expanded and made it a little more artsy! felt fitting given my last post. i ♡ sylvia plath.

Lady Lazarus- Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.

One year in every ten

I manage it——

A sort of walking miracle, my skin

Bright as a Nazi lampshade,

My right foot

A paperweight,

My face a featureless, fine

Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin

O my enemy.

Do I terrify?——

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be

At home on me

And I a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.

What a trash

To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.

The peanut-crunching crowd

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot——

The big strip tease.

Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands

My knees.

I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.

The first time it happened I was ten.

It was an accident.

The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all.

I rocked shut

As a seashell.

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I’ve a call.

It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.

It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.

It’s the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute

Amused shout:

‘A miracle!’

That knocks me out.

There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge

For the hearing of my heart——

It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge

For a word or a touch

Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.

So, so, Herr Doktor.

So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,

I am your valuable,

The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.

I turn and burn.

Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash—

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——

A cake of soap,

A wedding ring,

A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air

The concept of the human mind is impossible to understand, even between itself and its holder. As humans, we struggle to sort through our inhibitions and to determine the origin of our most cynical thoughts; this concept is widely believed to present itself in the mentally ill, whose minds presumably operate to different intricacies and capacities than others. While some find these irregularities captivating, the majority of society responds with forced isolation, pushing the mentally ill away and leaving them in total alienation, regardless of the true meaning behind their behaviors and mindsets, simply disregarding the idea that through these esoteric thoughts lie their true struggle. Sylvia Plath is an exceptional example of this, who, in her writing exposes us to the macabre creativity of those deemed mentally unstable and demonstrates how the manifestation of these illnesses is often artistically and whimsically portrayed. Specifically, in her poem “Lady Lazarus,” Plath presents a disturbing allusion to the Holocaust, as well as a disconcerting yet irresistibly enamoring reference to art symbolic of the speaker’s own feelings towards death, ultimately illustrating how her existence represents those who’ve been mocked in society, and how they often connect with ideas that are not reflective of societal norms. Additionally, the blatant and almost voyeuristic treatment of the speaker commentates on the treatment of mentally ill women in society and how they are endlessly mocked and contradictorily lusted for, but only to the extent of sexualization and control.

Beginning as soon as the second stanza, the speaker describes herself as “A sort of walking miracle,” “[Her] skin bright as a Nazi lampshade…” which alludes to the Holocaust and the practices of the Nazis toward the Jewish minority. The Nazi lampshade in particular refers to a practice in which Nazis would use the skin of Jewish people to create lampshades, or in other words turn them into objects. This reflects the speaker’s own objectification from society, as they’ve literally turned her into a human object, a spectacle of sorts in which her humanity is mocked and ignored. Aside from objectification, the reference also represents the superficial life she wished to escape. Like the lampshade, she is hollow yet still burns brightly. Her soul is dead, and she wishes to rectify the disconnection between her soul and her physical form through death. This reference is one that many would find concerning and odd but connects back to the central idea that those who’ve been dishonored by those around them no longer see fit to follow these social norms, as it would be taboo to the general public to reference so openly and even to go as far to compare oneself to the suffering Jewish people endured during the Holocaust, but the speaker does it proudly and with a distinct certainty– further emphasizing her confidence in her uncanniness.

As we progress through the poem, the speaker plainly states that to her, “dying is like an art,” and “like everything else, [she does] it exceptionally well.” Though this seems straightforward, this overall feeling towards death symbolizes how the speaker views her entire life and art. The speaker claims to “have nine times to die” because every time she attempts to exert her own bodily autonomy and end her suffering for good, she is brought back by “Herr Doktor,” making him her “Enemy.” It’s as if men control everything in her life, even her only way to escape which she desires so greatly in an attempt to flee the rampant patriarchal oppression plaguing her life. Her resentment for it builds as she conspires to rise again and “eat men like air.”

However, she craves a death that is artistic, original, and imaginative, representing herself as a creator. She sees herself as an art form, and the way she expresses it is through self-harm and these unusual yet intricate references to a violent death. Death is her muse. “It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.” “It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.” “It’s the theatrical.” She makes it overwhelmingly and uncomfortably clear that death is her performance– her display of art, which she’s been chasing for her entire existence, yet it's the men in her life that prevent her from doing so.

This idea that she is an artist of death connects to the overall theme because she is an artist of DEATH. Death is taboo, a topic not talked about if not for the negative, yet she embraces it and engulfs her entire being in it as if her only goal in life is to die. She is confident in her feelings about death and unapologetic; societal norms do not apply to her because society does not include her. She’s been pushed out, mocked, and watched by “the peanut-crunching crowd.” She is “the big strip tease.” Her entire life she has been an object of society, yet not a part of society, and therefore, her art is manifested abnormally and self-depreciatingly.

Throughout the poem, the speaker expresses her affinity for the concept of death and how she saw her own death as an art form and herself as an art piece. It was shown in such an unconventional way which most people would think is dripping in eeriness, yet it was the essence of her entire being. This poem serves as social commentary– shows how society pushes people away with objectification and a disregard for their humanity and represents the forgotten, specifically the forgotten women who’ve been reduced to nothing but an exhibitionist their whole lives. She confidently expresses death as the meaning of her existence and in doing so highlights the unrewarding cycle in which a woman cannot even live without a man’s interference, let alone die.