Lady Lazarus
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
O 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 unwraps me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hand
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 of 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.
By: Sylvia Plath (1962)
Once every ten years, the speaker dies before she is reborn as an identical woman. She dies for the third time, and rises out of the ash like a phoenix, ready to eat the men that separate her from death’s clutches.
Major Themes and Motifs:
- Death (and the art of dying)
- Body Appearances
- Christianity
- Allusions to the Second World War
- Rebirth
Literary Terms Applicable to “Lady Lazarus”:
- Allusion
- Ambiguity
- Analogy
- Auditory Imagery
- Caesura
- Character
- Characterisation
- Connotation
- Denotation
- Diction
- Double Entendre
- Enjambment
- Feminist Lens
- Figurative Language
- First Person Narrative
- Imagery
- Metaphor
- Meter
- Mood
- Register
- Repetition
- Rhyme
- Rhythm
- Setting
- Simile
- Stanza
- Structure
- Symbol
- Symbolism
- Syntax
- Tercet
- Theme
- Thesis
- Tone
- Visual Imagery
Characters:
(in order of appearance)
The Speaker-
One year in every decade, there is a “war” waging across her body before she dies. The speaker describes her foot as a paperweight, her skin as being bright as a Nazi lampshade, and her face is like fine Jew linen. Her flesh is rotting underneath even though she is only thirty. The speaker is like a cat with nine lives, and she is on her third life. She dies once every ten years when society strips her naked. The speaker returns as an identical woman. She is depressed, and tried to commit suicide: “The second time I meant / To last it out and not come back at all.” She is talented at dying. When she returns, she feels different, but other people don’t notice it. When she’s under examination, she bursts into flames. The speaker is reborn with red hair, and the ability to “eat men like air.” The speaker desperately wants to stay deceased.
Detailed Description of the Events within the Poem:
- One year in every decade, the speaker sees herself in a different perspective.
- In her mind, there is a war rampaging across her body.
- “My skin, / Bright as a Nazi lampshade.”
- “My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen.”
- Underneath her skin, her flesh is described as decaying.
- The speaker is only thirty, but she needs to die nine times before she can finally rest.
- She dies once every ten years.
- The society strips her naked.
- She returns as an identical woman.
- The first time was an accident.
- The second time was on purpose, and she didn’t want to come back.
- The others have to pick up the pieces behind her.
- The speaker is talented at dying, which is like an art.
- There are many ways to do it and to make it theatrical.
- She wakes up, and the crowd shouts it’s a miracle.
- She feels beaten because they can’t see any differences.
- The speaker’s new body feels different.
- She offers herself up to be examined as a woman who will be reborn, as Lazarus.
- The speaker starts to burn as “you poke and stir.”
- Everything burns.
- She tells God and Lucifer to beware.
- She rise out of the flames, “And I eat men like air.”
Significance of the Text:
Sylvia Plath is known for her allusions to the Second World War in her poetry; “Lady Lazarus” has these allusions. There are evident references like “Bright as a Nazi lampshade,” but she also includes some German phrases, such as “Herr Doktor.” By using this allusion to describe the speaker’s body before she kills herself, Plath creates an intense and disturbing mood. Compared to her rotting flesh, death is like a beautiful theatrical art.
Interesting Tidbit:
Revealed in a conversation with Anne Saxon, Plath thought that death was the opposite of poetry. “Sylvia and I would talk at length about our first suicide, in detail and in depth—between the free potato chips. Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem. Sylvia and I often talked opposites.”
Where More of Sylvia Plath’s Work can be Found:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sylvia-Plath/e/B000APTIGW
Words: 1,050
Megalomaniac Writer 