Read the biographical information regarding Sylvia Plath at the link below.
How does this knowledge change/enhance/disrupt your interpretation of the poem “Lady Lazareth” or its speaker?
What role does cruelty such as the holocaust imagery play in the poem?
What other images does Plath employ that are particularly meaningful or effective? (250-300 word response, due Lesson 6 (28/29 January).
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The knowledge of Sylvia Plath’s struggles with her relationship and mental health enhances my interpretation of “Lady Lazareth” by giving insight into the struggles that likely influenced Plath to write the poem. Her stay in a mental health facility after attempted suicide and then eventual return to Smith College was likely made a big deal in her eyes, with old friends or even mere acquaintances wanting to ask her if she’s now okay or how she’s doing. The intense welcome back could be compliments of the “peanut crunching crowd” who fails to see that “nevertheless, [she is] the same, identical woman.” Throughout her poem, cruelty and holocaust imagery are likely meant to reflect how Plath views the outside world. With this imagery, Plath creates an environment for the ready that is clearly uncomfortable and intolerable. Plath also reveals how she feels about certain people in her life. She refers to the ones so saved her life after her attempted suicide “Herr Doctor. Herr enemy.” The repetition of “Herr” is to continue her use of Nazi imagery while also explaining how she feels the ones who try to save her life are not really doing Plath any favors, or at least in her eyes. The very first imagery employed by Plath in this poem is that of Lazarus, the man who was resurrected by Jesus. Thinking as to how Plath has viewed her own supposed “resurrections,” I do not think this imagery was intended to be positive. Lazarus did not have any say in whether he would be brought back to life. Plath feels the same in that her attempts to kill herself are constantly being undermined by doctors, those at the mental health facility, and others around her.
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The knowledge of Sylvia Plath’s struggles with her relationship and mental health enhances my interpretation of “Lady Lazareth” by giving insight into the struggles that likely influenced Plath to write the poem. Her stay in a mental health facility after attempted suicide and then eventual return to Smith College was likely made a big deal in her eyes, with old friends or even mere acquaintances wanting to ask her if she’s now okay or how she’s doing. The intense welcome back could be compliments of the “peanut crunching crowd” who fails to see that “nevertheless, [she is] the same, identical woman.” Throughout her poem, cruelty and holocaust imagery are likely meant to reflect how Plath views the outside world. With this imagery, Plath creates an environment for the ready that is clearly uncomfortable and intolerable. Plath also reveals how she feels about certain people in her life. She refers to the ones so saved her life after her attempted suicide “Herr Doctor. Herr enemy.” The repetition of “Herr” is to continue her use of Nazi imagery while also explaining how she feels the ones who try to save her life are not really doing Plath any favors, or at least in her eyes. The very first imagery employed by Plath in this poem is that of Lazarus, the man who was resurrected by Jesus. Thinking as to how Plath has viewed her own supposed “resurrections,” I do not think this imagery was intended to be positive. Lazarus did not have any say in whether he would be brought back to life. Plath feels the same in that her attempts to kill herself are constantly being undermined by doctors, those at the mental health facility, and others around her.
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The meaning behind “Lady Lazarus” becomes enhanced when looking at Sylvia Path’s autobiography. By knowing about her early attempted suicide and her history of depression we can get a deeper look into her sadness and madness that drove her to express these emotions through this poem. Her autobiography provides input on her life and supplements the reading by showing how she was depressed which may explain why her poem is so dark. The role of cruelty through holocaust imagery allows the poem to become more dark and obscure, it also gives the poem a point to compare to. Through using holocaust imagery, Plath is showing her pain and internal struggles with a hyperbole. Her struggles and pain are very intense and driving her to madness, and she uses the comparison point of the holocaust to express it. I think an effective use of imagery Plath had was explaining a dead body through the stanza “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?/The sour breath/Will vanish in a day.” Through this use of imagery she shows how death is a quick release to all the suffering she is enduring, instead of continuing to suffer, she can just kill herself and then her body may remain but eventually it will all vanish like the pain of living. Using that stanza as a point to compare to a stanza that describes her alive, “A sort of walking miracle, my skin/Bright as a Nazi lampshade,/My right foot/A paperweight,/My face a featureless, fine/Jew linen.” we see how she believes death is a preferable choice to this suffering she is experiencing.
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After reading the poem the first time, I was able to pick up many of the clues that gave us insight into Plath’s life. I could tell that she grew up throughout World War II from the way that she referenced “Nazi” and the “I turn and burn” like how the Jewish people were often burned and buried in mass graves. I picked up on the fact that she killed herself, even though the poem was clearly written before her death. The article made no mention of it, but I believe that she tried to kill herself 2 times unsuccessfully before her death in 1963. The article only mentioned one attempt, which she hinted at, and she was sent to a mental asylum, which se also mentioned. Knowing the information presented in the article enhanced the poem. It gave meaning to the sections that I mentioned above. After reading the biography, I was able to confirm my suspicions and after reading the poem a second time, after the biography, the same lines called out to me with more emphasis than the first reading. Hearing the author recite the poem did not do anything for me. I have had other instructors assign the same sort of task, where we listen to the author recite their own work, but it neither enhances, nor hinders, the work for me. I absorb the information more readily when I read works myself rather than listening to others. I can see how the author putting emphasis on specific words, or how listening to their inflection could result in an enhanced reading, but much of how they recite it is how I recite it.
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After reading the Plath’s autobiography enhances the meaning behind her poem “Lady Lazarus”. The new insight into her struggles with depression and suicide can help show why her poem is so bleak and filled with death. When the poem says”And like the cat I have nine times to die./This is Number Three.”, which could be referring to her attempts at suicide. By adding the imagery of the Holocaust Plath is reinforcing the darker themes of the poem and as an outlet to express the death in which she appears to be seeking. It is also interesting to look at how she puts some focus on how she escaped death in her previous attempts and when talking about the nine lives she could be suggesting that she could escape death again. The nature of the imagery she uses suggests that she wants no doubt as to what she is talking about as the holocaust is very much connected to suffering and death. One image that I think Plath employs really well is “And I a smiling woman./I am only thirty.” because it adds a bit of tragedy to her story. This part displays her as a woman who has her whole life ahead of her and yet, she is struggling and the only way she sees out is to commit suicide. Along with that the imagery of a smiling women goes against the general theme of the poem and could add some mystery as to why she is suffering.
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To me, the knowledge of Sylvia Plath’s depression and subsequent suicide changes and enhances by understanding of her poem, “Lady Lazarus”. Before understanding the background involved, it seemed to me that the poem was profound, but also nonsensical and confusing at times. References to the holocaust seemed to be out of place, as well of a large amount of disturbing imagery. Although it was fairly obvious that the poem is an example of an extended metaphor, it was difficult for me to understand exactly what the metaphors were meant to represent. However, after reading through Sylvia Plath’s background, the poem makes much more sense to me. For one, the references to the holocaust seem to have a more valid place in her poem. Since Plath was born in the 1930s, her early childhood was undoubtedly dominated by the Second World War and the conversation of the holocaust. As such, when she is experiencing feelings of depression and suicide later in her life, it makes sense for her to tie her feelings to the hopelessness and cruelty reflected in the holocaust. The idea of an unfair world is reflected in her writing, and it is clear that she ties the unfairness of the holocaust to the unfairness and cruelty reflected in her own life events and depression. In addition, her imagery relating to the nine lives of a cat makes much more sense with the knowledge that she was contemplating suicide at the time the poem was written. Other imagery of being exposed and raw also makes more sense in the context of her background.
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By having more knowledge of the background and life of Plath, the reader can now see why she wrote the way she did. When Plath referred to herself as “Like the cat i have nine times to die”, that stuck out because we now know of her struggle with suicide . We know that she tried multiple times. Without having the context of the author’s background, the sentence would mean virtually nothing. Based off the time period of when Plath was alive, we can infer that she was indeed writing about the Holocaust. Was she possibly comparing or wishing that she was there herself? The role that the Holocaust plays strikes a nerve with readers. Using the tragedy of the Holocaust, Plath is able to explain that even though “I may be skin and bone… i am the same, identical woman.” This is showing the readers that even though she has been through rough times in her life, she is still, what she seems to think as the same person she has always been.
An effective image that Plath uses comes from the last stanza when she says, “Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and i eat men like air.” This can become very visual, depending on how one looks at it from a physical or metamorphic side. The physical could mean she was actually eating men like the air around her. Scary. However, the metamorphic version strikes a bigger tone with me showing that she does not need men. She is rising up from when she was once dead. From the ground up she is rising, and that could give a sense of hope.
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When you learn about Plath’s history, the poem suddenly has more meaning. You almost start off with a sad tone in mind. As you read the poem “Lady Lazarus”, you feel as if you start to understand the author. The lines “Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease, ” makes the reader wonder what she is referring to until she mentions the incident being an accident later. I am assuming based upon the way it is written she is referring to sexual abuse. It becomes more impactful when she describes her body as “skin and bones”, yet they still ravished her. She mentions dying after this situation. I want to think she isn’t referring to herself psychically, but her inner spirit and her mind withering away with the occurrences. The respect and love for her body gone as she is left in despair. She mentions hell, blood, and jail cells. This further illustrates her feeling that there was nothing she could do about her situation. The images portrayed allows the reader to see into her mind. The cruelty from the Holocaust as expressed when describing her body and the abuses done to her gives the reader another glimpse of understanding unto why she is upset. The cell she mentions could mean more than feeling trapped and dying in her mind, but a literal cell she was being held in. The hell she mentions could also resemble the furnaces they used to kill people in masses. The Holocaust adds another level to the meaning of her words that could already be interpreted to resemble her mental state.
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After reading Sylvia Plath’s biography, my idea of the poem was critically enhanced. After looking into her biography I realized that the poem was not about the holocaust, it was about her life and her feelings of depression and pain. At first, I was reading the poem and I thought that the author must have been a holocaust survivor the way that she depicted such negativity and darkness around the subject. In actuality, she was a young teenager living in the United States while the Holocaust existed in Europe. One thing in particular I noticed about the poem was the title. I believe Lady Lazareth is connected to the Biblical figure Lazarus. Lazarus was a man who had died but was raised to life again by Jesus. I believe Plath relates herself to Lazarus because she had also almost died before. In the biography we gain insight about her suicide attempts and her depression. Although it was a miracle for Lazarus to be raised to life, Plath would consider it a miracle for her to be laid to rest. The biography also enlightens us on the time frame of Plath’s life. Her entire childhood consisted of the Great Depression and World War Two. These two events likely caused some of the darkness in her life and may have overshadowed her for years after. Her marriage also contributed to her depression and was likely a the last straw for her mental health in regards to suicide. Overall, the negative experience of the poem directly correlates to what I would perceive of Plath’s outlook on her life.
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The knowledge of Sylvia Plath’s past changes and enhances my interpretation of the poem “Lady Lazarus” and its speaker. At first glance, it seems that the poem highlights key words associated with the holocaust to emphasize someone’s experience during that time. However, knowing more about the author’s background, it seems that Plath uses the allusion of the Holocaust as a comparison to how she feels in her life. She uses it to emphasize and compare the torture that she thinks she is living through to those who were persecuted during the Holocaust. The use of imagery related to the Holocaust shows the extent to which she believed the cruelty that took place in her life lead to her depressed state. It shows that she believes that life is cruel and it is easier to die than to overcome the cruelty. In regards to the title, Plath is using the biblical allusion of Lazarus which makes readers think of someone being raised from the dead. This seems somewhat contradictory especially after learning of Plath’s background because the poem then seems to be about the opposite. The stanza “Dying/ Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well” showcases her feelings towards her life and shows that it is reasonable to make the conclusion that she is using the holocaust to emphasize her want to die. This is effective because it proves that knowing more about the author’s background allows for an enhanced analysis of the poem.
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The meaning of this poem is enhanced by the knowledge of Plath’s background. It puts into context the evidence of her previous attempts at taking her own life and it makes apparent that this poem is no doubt written by someone in a depressive state. The Holocaust imagery present in the poem is meant to contrast her false mood with her actual feelings. She feels like she must put up a front every time she interacts with people, and she is tired of it. Powerfully, Plath writes, “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?/The sour breath/Will vanish in a day.” This stanza plays on the fragility of life as well as the writer’s desire to die. Plath describes herself as body parts rather than a conscious being to disconnect herself from her body that is eventually going to die. She also says that she is of the same skin and bone as her past self, and that her mood then is irrelevant to her mood now. Suicide attempts are seen as victories for Plath and her failed attempt is seen as a failure. This failure is why the poem is titled “Lady Lazarus,” an illusion to the Biblical character who arose from the dead. She writes about how her flesh is going to return to her body after she is picked from the grave. Though this poem is cruel and dark, it is a work of art expressing perhaps the worst feeling a human can have. Plath’s life was directly responsible for her poetic inclinations.
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After reading “Lady Lazureth,” by Sylvia Plath, my first interpretation was that the poem told a story of a tragic life of blame and death that ultimately ended in a person dying. After reading the Sylvia Plath Biography, I understand that the poem was about Sylvia Plath herself, and was written before she killed herself. The Poem directly reflects Plath’s life story, as she attempted to kill herself three times. She talks about how the first time she attempted suicide, “it was an accident,”(Stanza 12) and the second time she meant to “not come back at all,”(Stanza 13). After understanding the biography, my interpretation has altered, and I now see a cruel, existential view of the author. This idea of cruelty is seen when Plath sees her skin as “bright as a Nazi Lampshade,” as the theory states that Nazis used to take prisoners’ skin and make the artifacts, such as a lampshade. This unhuman description plays into the wickedness Plath is attempting to show. She is telling the audience that she was crazy to even before her death. Her description of the melting body goes with this idea of wickedness, as her “nose” and her “full set of teeth” vanish all a sudden (Stanza 5). She planned her own suicide and publicly announced it. This poem was her suicide note, and all the events leading up to her downfall. The scary part about this poem is that she concludes with how she will rise and will “eat men like air,” (Stanza 28). I believe she is trying to scare the audience, and it makes her look even more chaotic and cruel. The imagery overall emphasizes the cruel nature of Plath.
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Learning about the history of Sylvia Plath, it gave the poem “Lady Lazarus” a stronger meaning. The cruelty she depicts in the poem like the Holocaust cruelty shows the pain that she feels inside of her. She mentions Nazis, Jews, and some German, as a symbol of pain and suffering that came from the Holocaust during World War II. She compares this suffering with her own. In Stanza 8, she first mentions how she tried committing suicide. Without knowledge of her background, this part of the poem loses much of its significance. it merely seems like the work of a poet trying to use some imagery to convey sad emotion. However, when you find out that she actually did try killing herself, there is a bigger impact on what she is saying in those lines. She compares herself to a cat, running off of the myth that they have nine lives. She says that she is on three, because she has tried killing herself two times before. For the second one, she said that she didn’t want to get back up. These are some clear signs of depression. We also later find out that her husband left her for another girl. This is one of the final breaking points for her in her life. As a woman with pre-existing depressive and suicidal thoughts, that sent her over the edge. The last lines of the poem are a reference to the fact that she will be dead, “Out of the ash I rise with my red hair.” (Stanza 28). Her feelings of depression and suicide are magnified through the words of her poem.
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Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus depicts the themes of death and rebirth. It is important to know about Sylvia’s past to understand how these themes contribute to the main idea. Sylvia’s struggle with depression and suicide is captured in the first stanzas and the metaphor of the Lazarus. The Lazarus is a biblical allusion. In Sylvia’s case it represents some brutally defiant part of her that refuses to die. There is evidence of this meaning leading up to the 6th Stanza in which she expresses the reality that she is a middle aged woman that has tried several times to end her life to escape the crudeness of life. The imagery of cruelness in the poem may ultimately reflect Plath’s past relationships. For example, her dad died when she was young. This contributed to her feelings of depression.
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Reading the biography of Sylvia Plath gives an in depth view of the motives behind the meaning of Lady Lazareth. It changed my interpretation of the poem because I assumed that she would be talking about the hardships involved with the holocaust, and how one may have the thoughts of suicide to escape the hardships of their life. After learning about her own attempted suicides throughout her life, I began to realize that she is referring to herself when she talks about death in this poem. She identifies the first time in her life when she attempted suicide, saying “The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident.” This puts into perspective the problems that she faced with depression at such a young age, as her biography revealed. Using the holocaust, she tries to make it seem as if her death would be reasonable, as she puts herself in the shoes of a Jew. Using the reference of the cat proved as another meaningful comparison in her poem. Plath may have believed that she could live unlimited lives, and she did not think f death in the ideal way of most people. She looked at herself as almost immortal, continuing to discuss the multiple times she attempted to take her life. Through her biography, we see that the hardships faced throughout her life with her husband caused the depression and anxiety that she was having. This poem was written in a time when she was dealing with her personal problems, and maybe when they were at its peak.
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Starting out it is interesting she uses “I have done it again.” in her first stanza. She eases into the holocaust references with here second and third stanzas “A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fen Jew linen.” This Lady Lazarus that she writes of in first person is an interesting choice in the sense that most people associate the holocaust with Hitler and Nazi Germany, not necessarily a female or demon. After giving the reader an introduction/clue as to what she is talking about she begins to go into descriptive writing with “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day.” I also find it interesting that she talks about how like a cat she has nine times to die instead of nine live to live and that this is number three. I feel that this could be a connection to possibly WWI and the Civil War or if she is referring to the mistreatment of human rights and past offences of that. My favorite part is her description of dying in regards to it being like an art, even though I don’t particularly like it when suicide is mentioned. She writes “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 is possible she isn’t talking about suicide and rather that she is talking about the ways Nazi Germany killed an tortured the Jews. This would make sense with her previous reference “These are my hands My knees. I may be skin and bone,” which could be referring to the interment camps. I believe that her writing and they way she wrote this is meaningful but it is extremely up to interpretation, when I first read it I thought it was about suicide and not the holocaust which now I have two perspectives on this piece of work.
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Reading the background information about the life of Sylvia Plath, after reading her poem, “Lady Lazarus”, has deeply enhanced my opinion on my initial interpretation of the poem. My initial interpretation of Lady Lazarus was that the main character was trying to commit suicide because she states “Soon, soon the flesh the grave cave ate will be at home on me” (Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus). The background information about Sylvia Plath describes how she experienced many hardships such as her marriage falling apart, mental illnesses, and depression. In my opinion, after reading the background information, Sylvia Plath wanted her poem to speak for her. Sylvia Plath wrote the poem to express her dark true inner emotions. This is evident because both the character in Lady Lazarus and Sylvia Plath seeks death. Sylvia Plath met her predicted demise when she committed suicide on February 11, 1963.
Moreover, in Sylvia Plath’s poem, she uses the holocaust imagery to express to the readers the great cruelty and pain she is in. Sylvia feels as if she too shares the same sentiments that the Jewish people in the holocaust experienced- she felt like a victim., “A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen” (Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus). Further, Plath employs an ironic image of dying that adds effect to the context of her poem when she states “Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well” (Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus). This is ironic because Plath does not do “exceptionally well”, she has had unsuccessful attempts at dying. Thus, in a deeper scope, Plath is trying to convey that dying comes easily for her because she feels like she is already dead within.
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“Lady Lazarus”, by Sylvia Plath, reads with a grim, unsettling air. It speaks of torture and death, heavily implying suicide throughout. It leaves the impression that the author is deeply disturbed, broken in some serious way. It makes you, the reader, worry about the speaker’s self-destructive and suicidal tendencies. You hope the poem isn’t autobiographical. Unfortunately, after reading about the tragic life of Plath, your deepest concerns are realized. Plath clearly battled with mental health throughout her life, attempting suicide multiple times and eventually taking her own life. The dark views in the poem were clearly those she held as her own. The poem’s unsettling nature is enhanced with this knowledge. Plath’s utilization of Holocaust imagery shows depths of the pain she was experiencing, equating brutal torture at Nazi hands with the anguish of her depression. Plath conveys this anguish in other ways, for example, calling herself an artist, with death as her art. This image highlights the frequency of her suicidal thoughts—even their variety. She describes different manners of killing herself, calling it “easy enough”. She utilizes religious allusions as well, calling out to both God and Lucifer in parallel breaths. This evokes a feeling of finality, where she leaves the judgement of her life in their hands, unsure of which one her soul belongs to. Even the title, “Lady Lazarus”, implies her death multiple times—each at her own hands. The unsettling nature of the poem at first read is compounded once Plath’s biography comes into play. The poem, initially read as a cry for help, now reads as a flag of surrender.
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After reading the biography of Sylvia Plath, it provides a greater insight to her poem, “Lady Lazarus”. When reading through the poem initially, the poem focuses on the themes of death and darkness. There are many references to death, even where the speaker refers to themselves as a cat with nine lives that has spent two of them. After reading the biography of Plath, the words in the poem show deeper meaning than before. The poem seems to take on a reflection of her life, in that she had multiple suicide attempts and depression phases, that is likely reflected in her writing about the cat losing two lives. The inclusion of the Holocaust and the imagery associated with it serves to darken the mood of the poem. The Holocaust is a well-known event in which many atrocities occurred. Referencing it opens a connection to a dark feeling already, which Plath plays on throughout the poem through her words about death. Additionally, Plath also references hell. The speaker talks about how she dies “so it feels like hell”. The reference to Hell adds on to the affect that Plath created in her poem that talks about all the dark things of the Holocaust, as well as the dark things of death itself. Finally, her reference to Lucifer adds on to her feelings about the Holocaust. She calls Lucifer “Herr Lucifer” implying that Lucifer would have lived among the Germans himself. In a way, this could be Plath trying to illustrate the evilness of Nazi Germany, and it embodies the stories she would have been told while growing up during the time of World War II.
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After reading Plath’s biography and then her poem Lady Lazarus, the poem seemed more like a personal story rather than just a grim poem about someone who wanted to die. Because I knew that Plath wanted to die and tried to commit suicide multiple times, the poem became more emotional as I now knew that these feelings were real and that Plath probably felt like this throughout her life. I also thought that the first line, “I have done it again” was a very strong way to start off the poem because Plath is starting by saying that these self destructive feelings are not fleeting, and instead they are lasting and causing a lot of emotional trouble in her life. By alluding to the Holocaust, Plath makes the poem seem even darker and the emotions and feelings that are portrayed seem worse. Because the Holocaust was such a horrific event that emotionally affected a lot of people, by mentioning it, Plath creates a sense of disturbance and unease in her poem. I think that this helps Plath describe the feelings that she feels personally. Not everyone experiences such dark depression or has suicidal thoughts, so by comparing her thoughts and alluding to the Holocaust, an event people know was terrible and horrific, Plath is giving people insight into the extreme emotions that suicidal people feel. When Plath states “And I a smiling woman./I am only thirty.” It makes me as a reader feel bad and sad because Plath is a young woman who has so much of her life ahead of her, yet she has all these negative thoughts and wants to die when she has so much more of her life to give. I think this is powerful because by giving an age, the readers can better understand the tragedy of suicide and how much of someone’s life is being lost.
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In the beginning, I thought that the person in the poem Lady Lazareth was similar to a snake, shedding skin every decade perhaps. In her own life, Sylvia Plath may have done just that. Her constant struggle with depression, stemming in part from rejection by others like her former husband, must have seemed like a second skin to her. Occasionally it would be removed either through good times in life or therapy, but it always returned and had to be fought off once again. The poem’s theme of cruelty through use of holocaust imagery gives me a sense of unjustified suffering in her life at the hands of others and brings me deeper into the poem as I remember how I myself feel when I am treated cruelly. Plath’s description of a monster with “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth” invokes a particularly strong mental image. Perhaps that is how she feels inside, how she sees the world around her, or how she views her own depression. The great tragedy of it all is that while she is able to perfectly capture her depressed and suicidal thoughts on paper in writing, she was unable to save herself ultimately. She had not yet lived a full life and while she seems to have at least in part understood her own nature, it did not stop her.
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After reading the biographical background of Sylvia Plath, the troubles of her personal life definitely translate to her works as if a she is able to personify her hardships and mold them into the life of another. “Lady Lazarus” I think though using the Holocaust as a means to represent hate dissent for life in general. The poem itself exemplifies the hate present in the world and that it does not just take a singular form but can be represented by a multitude of different things in both people and objects. I do think Plath’s personal bias to the worst in the world from her own demons may detract from the overall theme of the poem. It seems that no matter which way you interpret the meaning of the language used, you always end up with a poor conclusion on that there is no good out there. The cruelty in the poem focuses on strengthening the previously stated theme of dismay. Its safe to say that the Holocaust is one of the worst atrocities in human history which may be the reason it is used in the poem to begin with. In a sense what better example to personify hate than such a blatant instance of disregard for human rights. Plath also uses specifically in the last stanza which seems to be a deep rooted distrust for men as well probably drawing off of prior experience in her own life that had led to those sentiments. It also may be a reference to the still vast inequality gap between females and males at the time of writing the poem as it was right on the verge of the civil rights movements of the 1960’s which led to multiple movements for the progression of social right and freedoms of multiple groups of demographics.
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After learning about Plath’s life, my interpretation of “Lady Lazarus” is enhanced. The knowledge of Plath’s depression and life struggles puts more meaning into the poem in my opinion. For example, her unhappiness and attempts at suicide are reflected in the dark, ominous mood of the poem. The dark imagery in the poem also plays a role in adding more meaning. The cruelty shown in the imagery throughout the poem adds to the dark meaning behind the poem, and it also relates back to Plath’s life. For example, the holocaust is a time that she lived through, and although she was never exposed to it, she saw the effects of it after the war ended. The holocaust imagery in the poem adds more about evil and death to the poem and adds to the sinister mood and meaning in the poem. Another image in the poem that add to the mood is when she tells god and the devil to watch out because she is rising from the ashes. This adds to the mood because she is claiming that she is going to die and overthrow two powerful beings. Also, not only is she saying she’s going to defeat good, but she says she will defeat the devil as well. This implies that she is more evil than the devil, which adds to the sinister meaning of the poem.
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I think primarily the work influences how I may interpret the work but not necessarily who is the speaker. The context behind the circumstances of poem are very enlightening as Plath’s state most undoubtedly contributed to the mood of the poem as it is quite harsh. The evaluation of the circumstances of the speaker may also be a manifestation of depression unfortunately as Plath may struggle with living in her life at that time and hence such a topic as the poem as the grim theme is most likely a reflection of her state of mind. I think given both the author’s background and state of mind making a poem that refers to the Holocaust is very different given that she had no direct or familial experience that I can find with the Holocaust. The only primary form of focus that I think is reasonable to emphasis is the brutality and cruelty of the event made it interesting to the author to cover as a topic.
In regards to cruelty, the poem makes extensive both direct and indirect references to it throughout the poem. Whether it be “The peanut-crunching crowd” or “Bright as a Nazi lampshade” (which is a reference to Nazis creating lampshades from the skin of Holocaust victims). Overall this focus creates a picture that represents the core part of the poem – that being the depravity of humanity and subsequently pain that results from our actions.
I think the body imagery of “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?…Will vanish in a day” is rather important as it makes the reader question who the speaker, who comes to be more metaphorically then as an individual.
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The background information of Sylvia Plath enhances the understanding of her poem “Lady Lazarus”. While there is some value in reading or viewing a creative work with no background information, understanding either the creator’s background or the context of when it was created lead to a deeper understanding of the work. In the poem, she describes the fact that she is, “a sort of walking miracle” (Plath) a clear Biblical allusion to Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus. The idea that she feels that she should be dead is discernible from the poem itself, yet it becomes exceedingly clear upon learning of her marital struggles, mental illness, and suicide. She describes that, “[she is] only thirty” (Plath), which was the age which she killed herself. Understanding Plath’s biographical information not only reveals the many struggles which she was undergoing at this stage of her life, but also informs the reader that this poem must have been one of the last poems she had written. The verse, “Dying I do it exceptionally well” (Plath) furthers the idea that she no longer wanted to live. With understanding of her countless suicide attempts, the idea that she had died before shows clear reference to feeling like she should have died before and at many stages in her life lost all the will to exist. Without the full biographical context of Sylvia Plath’s life, it would be impossible to obtain a complete understanding of her poem.
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Reading Sylvia Plath’s biography allows me to understand her poem “Lady Lazarus” more and how it relates to her own life. Knowing about Plath’s depression and attempts at suicide makes the poem even more creepy and disturbing. Knowing that Plath attempted suicide twice allows me to know what the first stanza means, which sets the tone for the rest of the poem. She continues to make suicide references throughout the rest of the poem and refers to both times she attempted suicide. Knowing her biography made these references make sense, so I was able to read the poem much more smoothly. While it enhanced my understand of the poem, it also gave the poem much more meaning to me.
Additionally, Plath’s reference to the Holocaust in the second stanza helps achieve the poems eerie and disturbing mood. She uses imagery and compares her skin to a “Nazi lampshade” to depict a frightening image in the mind of the reader. Plath continues to portray herself in a similar way referring to her eyes as “pits” and her breathe as “sour.” Knowing about her depression, allows me to understand why Plath would view herself in such a negative manner. The poem transitions towards the end and becomes even more frightening. Plath compares her death to melting and says once she has melted there will be nothing there but a “cake of soap, a wedding ring, a gold filling.” Here, Plath may be making a reference to her marriage. Plath’s husband cheated on her, which negatively affected her mental health. This is another example of how knowing Plath’s biography helps to deepen the meaning of her poem.
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This knowledge enhances my interpretation of the poem because it all makes sense. Originally, I thought that the speaker was the devil because there is an eerie aurora to this poem, bit now knowing that Plath was mentally ill and extremely suicidal and in a crumbling marriage during this time it makes sense that it would be finical and dark. This knowledge not only enhances my interpretation, but it changes my interpretation because certain lines like “peel off the napkin”, and “the second time I meant to…not come back at all” did not makes much sense before but now that I know Plath repeated tried to kill herself it makes sense. The napkin is the loose mask she puts on to try and hide her inner illness, but the napkin barely holds everything back and eventually she oozes out and kills herself. The holocaust imagery plays a role in this because it highlights a dark period of human history where everyone was confused as to why? I believe that Plath is comparing the Holocaust time period to her life because she is confused as to why she is still alive, and why she must be victim all that is happening to her. Another image that is important to make note of is the image Plath creates as herself being the center of a show where “the peanut-crunching crowd” is charged “for the eyeing of [her scars and] for the hearing of [her] heart.” This is important because it shows how Plath views herself as being “theatrical” and having everyone look at her and judge her which is not conducive to her mental well-being.
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After reading the autobiography information about Sylvia Plath one cannot be drawn to compare her suicide attempt to the main theme of this poem. She seems to hint to it when she says, “the first time it happened I was ten,” which the reader can now conclude was a suicide attempt. The knowledge definitely disrupts the interpretation of the poem because one cannot read the poem without a sad and negative mindset and be compare the negative connotations to her eventual suicide. The overall feeling of the biographical knowledge puts the reader in a dark and sobering mindset. The cruelty that the holocaust imagery plays the role of framing the mindset of the reader to a particular time period for her as a Jew to be living in, as the hardships she faces. She also uses a lot of similes and metaphors as a way to compare herself to things, for example, that she’s a cat and has multiple lives; which the reader aligns to her suicide attempt. One particular dark metaphor is one I believe is her talking about harming herself when she says, “I do it so it feels like hell, I do it so it feels real.” She uses imagery to describe her cremation as to describe how once one died there is nothing left of them, for example, when she says, “you poke and stir. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there,” meaning once you die there is nothing left of you and that whatever you were going through is over.
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After I learned of Sylvia Plath’s struggles with mental illness I interpreted her poem a little differently. Before I read about Plath I was less understanding of the gloomy atmosphere of her poem “Lady Lazarus.” Now that I am aware of her pass, I am inclined to believe that her state of mind was in a darker place than that of an average persons at the time of her writing the poem. This may explain why her poem seemed so deeply pessimistic. Cruelty such as holocaust imagery in the poem can also probably be explained by how she was feeling at the time of writing her work. It is well known that Plath was divorced, and a single mother. She probably felt abandoned and subjected to a certain amount of unfair cruelty herself. This likelihood may go so far to explain her reference to a “peanut crunching crowd.” This powerful image provokes the idea that there is always a crowd on the sidelines of terrible injustices. The image of their peanut crunching summons a sense of disgust from the reader. The crowd seems like they do not care about whatever tragedy they are observing and watch with only mild interest…akin to a “peanut gallery.” To me, the most revealing stanzas in the poem comes at its conclusion where Plath writes, “Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air.” Plath is probably drawing on feelings provoked by her tumultuous relationship with her ex-husband. This is not something I would have assumed without reading her biography before her poem.
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After reading Sylvia Plath’s Biography and gaining new insight and knowledge into her life, it enhanced my interpretation of her poem “Lady Lazarus”. The biography talked about her mental struggles, her heart break, and one of her suicide attempts. Rereading the poem with insight into her actual life allowed me to pick up on some of her lines that I did not understand before. For example, “The peanut-crunching crowd Shoves in to see”. I interpreted this line as people watched her struggle, but nobody offered to provide mental support which I did not originally catch on to. When first reading the poem, it was apparent that one of the main themes was death. She writes, “And like a cat I have nine times to die”. The intent was clear but without reading the poem a second time and reading her biography, I would not have picked up on the suicidal references as easily. The significance of displaying the cruelness by using holocaust imagery was that Plath was able to demonstrate what death looks like on the outside and the pain and suffering that is physically felt to explain what she feels like on the inside. This sets the tone and allows readers to have insight into what she was feeling like since mental illness is internal and is not something that can be physically seen on the outside. She says, “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth? The sour breath Will vanish in a day”. This shows the physical stress on the Jew’s bodies that came after prolonged torture during the Holocaust. She is able to use this suffering to help articulate her own and says how this suffering can “vanish” by death.
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It sounds like Ms. Plath had a relatively normal life as a poet, troubled only by issues centering around her relationship and potentially some other outstanding mental health issues. This may have driven her to choose the diction and use the imagery she did in this work. She uses lots of imagery regarding death and even discusses it in a happy tone, like she is glad to shed her skin and bones and die. She says dying is an art she does well, which may be a link to her past. She tried to kill herself almost a decade before she died. So this stanza is actually ironic, as she is bad at dying, which may be her message. She uses imagery regarding the holocaust to amplify the theme of death and cruelty that her poem takes on. Even though it is not about the holocaust, using the words “Nazi”, using Herr and “a million filaments”, all make the audience think of the War and atrocities committed by the Nazis. These thoughts feed into her discussion of dying, and how she feels like she has died many times over, though she is really still alive. She makes it seem like people are watching her unwrap herself, and that she is having to bear her burden alone. A lot of what she discusses in her work though can probably be attributed to the issues mentioned above regarding her marriage, and her mental issues. These may have driven how she perceived herself and thus how she should portray herself in this work.
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Sylvia Plath, author of the tumultuous poem “Lady Lazareth,” has a personal story even more haunting and eventful. She had grown up in Boston, Massachusetts, and later lived in New York City to work with Mademoiselle magazine as a guest editor. During that time, she tried to kill herself by taking sleeping pills. Years after getting married to Ted Hughes, their relationship hit the rocks and they eventually split. After spiraling into deep depression, she committed suicide in 1963. In her poem “Lady Lazareth,” she describes herself and her mental state marked by her attempted suicides. By knowing about her background, the poem becomes haunting given her circumstances later in life. Throughout the poem, she refers to the Holocaust numeral times to demonstrate the crude nature of her depression and self-harm. In addition to the Holocaust, she refers to the previous times she has attempted suicide, and details each attempt with imagery. For example, during the second attempt, she mentions how those around her had to claw the worms off of her. This provokes the reader to imagine a dead body being pulled back to life. Also, she mentions the “peanut-crunching crowd,” who watches her actions. Obviously, she feels as if those around her have a microscope focused on her, which adds to the amounting pressure leading to her death. In conclusion, understanding her dark background invariably brings more light to the intentions and reasons for her poem “Lady Lazareth.”
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After reading Sylvia Plath’s biography, my interpretation of Plath’s poem, “Lady Lazareth” was heightened. Sylvia Path went through a lot of pain in her own life. It felt as if her cries for help were echoing through her words as the speaker of “Lady Lazareth” described the horrors of the holocaust. An example of this is demonstrated when Plath writes, “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.” The emotions and feelings displayed in this quote are evident in Plath’s own pains and struggles in life. Cruelty also played a huge part in “Lady Lazareth.” A few excerpts stood out that especially highlighted these cruelties. Plath describes a “Herr Doktor;” likely an example of a Nazi scientist performing excruciatingly painful medical experiments on the speaker of the poem. In addition to that, the speaker says “Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—.” This quote emphasizes the extreme starvation that victims of the holocaust had to go through. Finally, Plath ends the poem by cursing God and Lucifer with “Beware.” This reckoning demonstrates the anger the speaker was likely feeling as a result of being put through literal hell. Plath ties together all of these malicious examples of the brutality of the holocaust with vivid imagery that creates a total image of how horrible the holocaust truly was. In closing, Sylvia Plath’s poem “Lady Lazareth” on the surface represents the holocaust but is lined with the cries of Plath’s suffering.
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Upon my first reading of “Lady Lazarus” I felt the tone to be confident, which seems unfit to the messages of suicide that the speaker is referring to. The speaker seems to have fold a sort of confidence in her decision to take her life, sending a sense of victory over her troubles because they cannot take away her will to kill herself. After reading the background on Sylvia Plath’s life the confident tone that I originally felt is disrupted by the knowledge of her struggling with mental health. With this new knowledge, I see that her life was a whirlwind and that she did not seem to have much control over herself. This gives “Lady Lazarus” a tone of hopelessness and that the speaker is stuck in a state where death is her only option, which she cannot even achieve on her first try. Instead of choosing death that I saw in my first reading, the poem now seems to present death as the only option. Death seems more like its forcing itself on the speaker. The holocaust imagery allows for death to take a physical form in the Nazi force. While she does not specifically mention the Nazi soldiers, the imagery allows for the idea of the soldiers doing the horrific acts to enter the readers mind. Then the reader can associate the seemingly unstoppable force of Nazi soldiers, death, killing many persecuted people, the speaker. She also creates the image of a cats nine lives in a simile comparing herself to a cat with nine lives. This adds to the poem by showing that the death keeps coming back. She states that she is already on her third life. This indicates that death has already returned three times, and also that it will be back for more of her lives. This imagery adds to the overall message that she cannot escape death.
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After reading Plath’s biography, many connections of her life can be made to what she writes in her poem “Lady Lazarus”. The autobiography describes her early childhood, being a gifted but troubled writer, and how later while she was still a student in New York, she attempted to kill herself with sleeping pills, but would recover. The biography exhibits how she dealt with depression and mental illness, and how she incorporated that into her work. In the poem, Plath describing the suicide reflects greatly on her first attempt of killing herself. She describes how when she became the age of twenty her purpose was ash written: “The second time I meant/To last it out and not come back at all./ I rocked shut”. The prior knowledge of knowing of her suicide enhances the description and brings reality and purpose to when she says how she did not want to come back, meaning come back to life. The role of cruelty that the Holocaust imagery poses as a theme of death that is prevalent. Describing her skin as “bright as a Nazi lampshade” and her face a “featureless, fine Jew linen” ties with the horrors and atrocities that were experienced during the Holocaust. Making the comparison of herself versus life itself is a harsh and cruel as as the relationship of the Holocaust and Nazis towards the Jews. Other examples of similes that Plath utilizes in her poem is the comparison of her to a cat in the case of a cat having nine lives. Each life is suppose to represent a decade of live past, and as every decade passes, the closer to death a human is.
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Sylvia Plath’s biography causes me to read her poem, “Lady Lazarus”, in an even more depressing lens. Before I read her biography, I got the impression she was talking about near-death experiences when she mentioned her current life is “Number Three.” I was admittedly puzzled by her use of Holocaust imagery, but I figured she just used it so emphasize the somber tone of her already sad poem. After reading her biography, I get the impression her references to near-death experiences were actually referring to her past suicide attempts (although she claimed the first “was an accident”), and she now considered herself to be at her third go at life. The sad undertone in the entire poem seems now to be a lament of her own life, which was rendered miserable after her husband left her. The images of cruelty and references to the Holocaust simply add to this depressing mood, causing the reader to think of violence and death and a general lack of care for human life, perhaps a parallel of her lack of care for her own life with the Nazis’ lack of care for the Jews’ lives. I think the image of her being a cat that has “nine times to die” is powerful because it makes me think she had plans to keep on trying to kill herself until she’d eventually succeed. I also think her call to both God and Lucifer at the conclusion of her poem hints at her desire for death because she mentions essentially two alternatives of an afterlife — heaven and hell — which of course would first require her own death in order to be a relevant image.
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My initial reading of Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” is a strong case against the thinking of New Criticism. As a reader uninformed of Plath’s past I was taken back by what seemed to be reckless references to horrors of human behavior like the Holocaust and suicide. Upon first reading I found the poem to only comment on the human desire to understand death. This shallow understanding of the poem’s intended meaning is because I subconsciously assumed that Plath was a healthy minded writer and failed to account for the range of different experiences that drove her to write this poem. I did not understand that Plath had a tumultuous personal life, experienced suicide attempts, or that she would ultimately commit suicide a year after writing this poem. With this information, I now understand this poem to be a vent and an artistic information source for how mental health impacts human thinking. Thus, why this poem makes a strong case for why New Historicism is a necessary approach to some poetry. Plath’s commentary on death cannot be fully understood without an understanding of her past. Additionally, Plath’s artistic freedom would be unnecessarily limited if it was her responsibility to make both her message and entire background self-contained in the poem.
Plath’s use of Holocaust imagery plays into her explanation of how life can be cruel and undesirable at times. Later in the poem Plath writes,
“I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.”
Like the use of Holocaust imagery, Plath uses these lines to explain her mentality and give the reader insight into the mind of an artist of death.
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The interpretation of Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” is significantly changed by the knowledge of Plath’s background. While her poem contains short lines and stanzas, additional information about Plath’s life adds depth to the simplistic poem. For example, Plath’s biography notes that she attempted and committed suicide. This leads the reader to believe that Plath had a negative image of herself throughout her lifetime and make connections to the text. Plath says, “A sort of walking miracle, my skin//Bright as a Nazi lampshade, //My right foot //A paperweight, //My face a featureless, fine //Jew linen.” She compares herself to terrible things, resulting in an overall bleak self-description. Additionally, Plath’s reference to Nazis and Jews can be tied to the time period she lived in. Throughout the poem Plath refers to multiple deaths which can also be related to her suicidal behavior, which the reader only knows about through additional knowledge of the author. Strong, negative imagery is effective in further portraying a dark, depressing life of the character. Looking at the poem as a whole, the additional information about Plath makes it obvious that the character in “Lady Lazarus” is modeled after Plath herself. While her poem has plenty of meaning standing alone, when additional knowledge is added the meaning is enhanced.
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After reading the article about Plath, my view and interpretation of the poem “Lady Lazareth” completely changed. Before reading the article, I did not fully understand what the poem was referencing or what Plath was talking about at all, but now I believe that she was directly referencing herself and her experiences with attempting to commit suicide. Her first line says, “I have done it again One year in every ten I manage it.” Later she references that she has “nine times to die” and “this is Number Three.” She also mentions the negative ramifications that her body receives after an attempt; Examples such as “My face a featureless fine Jew linen.” and “My right foot a paperweight” are used. Using references to the holocaust intensifies the seriousness and darkness of the poem. Many people can relate to experiences from the holocaust. While the reader more than likely never experienced being in the holocaust, history gives a good picture of the bad experiences that people went through, and therefore people can relate. Plath goes into depth in describing her experience with facing death, and once the reader realizes that the poem is about her experiences with suicide, it slowly becomes more disturbing and grimmer than the words make it seem. The video of Plath reading the poem also changed my approach toward the meaning. The pauses and breaks that she uses are not in the original places that they were when I first read the poem. She reads it with seriousness that is undeniably truthful.
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Lady Lazarus gives a rather dire story of a woman who simply wishes to die. It creates a very tragic and earie aura around the poem upon reading about the author, who did commit suicide. It is a great example of I feel of art imitating life, Sylvia Plath writing a story that is meant to, at least in some capacity parallel her own life. Reading the biography of Plath caused me to take the poem much more literally and makes the story itself incredibly heartbreaking. The poem explains that the speaker is thirty years old and that she attempts to take her life once every ten years, meaning the final attempt in this poem is her third. What is interesting is that if it is mean to be autobiographical, Plath’s actual biography only details one attempted suicide and one successful one. This means it is possible that Plath attempted to commit suicide another time in that is not public knowledge. Whether or not this is the case, the poem shows just how much Plath struggled with oppressive feelings, using the Nazi imagery, as well as possibly her own body image, given the rather ghastly descriptions the speaker gives. Additionally, the end of the poem details some sort of rebirth or resurrection, “Out of the ash I rise with red hair” possibly hinting that the speaker hopes to find something more enjoyable on the other side of life. This could possibly relate to Plath’s very real desires to take her own life, being unsatisfied or wanting something other than what her life was able to give.
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After reading Sylvia Plath’s biographical information the subtler meanings behind her poem “Lady Lazarus” were more apparent. Insight into her life provided insight into the way that the poem expressed her feelings about life and death and why exactly she expressed the sentiments that she did in her poem. She begins saying that “I have done it again” and continues to describe 2 suicide attempts. After reading the biographical information, it turns out Sylvia Plath did have one recorded suicide attempt that landed her in a mental health facility to recover. Learning about her stay in the mental health facility after an attempted suicide gives the reader all the background information they need for the key element of imagery in this poem, the imagery of her as Lazarus, a character who was raised from the dead. Her suicide attempt failed and they brought her back to life and “they had to call and call and pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.” This imagery of picking worms off her body shows the reader that she thought of herself as already dead and they tried to fix that death by picking off the worms, a sign of a dead body. She also brings in lots of Holocaust imagery to her poem “Lady Lazarus” which is peculiar in the sense that she didn’t actually have any direct ties to the Holocaust. However, after further research it turns out her father was German born and her mother was of Austrian descent. Whether or not her and her parent’s relationship had any impact on her relationship with the Holocaust, she still made use of its imagery and the cruelty associated with it as if she felt similar cruelty in her life. Multiple times she also refers to people in her poem as “Herr,” a term with a bad connotation among her other Holocaust references. Each time she uses “Herr” she is referring to someone who prevented her from death. Ultimately, context is critical in order to fully understand the subtleties of Plath’s “Lady Lazarus.”
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Understanding that Plath had a troubled life and struggled with mental illness and deep depression makes her poem clear that it is articulating her relationship with death. Knowing her background enhanced my ability to understand and feel the emotion in the poem. When I read “Lady Lazarus” the first time I had a feeling it was about suicide and her struggles with life and death, but after reading the biography, all of her metaphors and diction made sense. She called herself a cat and that she has “nine times to die.” Her life was reflected in most of her work, in that they were dark and ominous. The repeated use of the word “Herr,” is a Holocaust reference with a negative connotation which was happening in her lifetime. I do think listening to Sylvia Plath read the poem makes the poem flow even better. The way she pauses in places I wouldn’t have paused and how she emphasized certain words to get her point across. There is an emotion that she brings to the poem without effort. She was the one who wrote the poem and she is the one who experienced all the suicides so she know better than anyone how to articulate that emotion. She even compliments herself by saying “Dying/Is an art, ,like everything else/I do it exceptionally well.” The breaths she takes between lines and the articulation of certain consonances make the poem sound dark and soul aching.
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The biographical information regarding Sylvia Plath has certainly enhanced my interpretation and understanding of her poem, “Lady Lazareth.” The first couple times that I read this piece, I was left with a discontent understanding and confused feeling. While I took note of the holocaust reference and the disparity between the crowd’s perception of herself and her own self reflection, I felt as though I was missing another central idea to the poem. Now, after reading about her struggles with mental health and her attempts at suicide, I believe that I understand far more to which she references.
Most notably, when she says “Number Three,” “the first time it happened I was ten,” and “the second time I meant to… not come back at all” (Plath 22, 35, 37-38). These lines combined with the background context of her relationship with suicide introduce incredibly powerful imagery. The idea of a ten year old attempting to take their own life draws the entire audience back because it is such a cruel concept to think of a seemingly innocent, young girl tainted by harrowing mental anguish.
Additionally, a theme of shocking cruelty travels carries throughout the poem. Plath uses the Holocaust as a way to truly capture this notion by referring to the nazi genocide of jewish men and women and how she herself has had to hide her self image. Plath achieves the same intended mood when she refers to her pain as a two-way street. “There is a charge,” plath writes, “a very large charge” for trying to empathize with her pain (61).
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Sylvia Plath’s autobiographical information changes/enhances/disrupts my interpretation of the poem “Lady Lazareth” because knowing more about her life adds depth to the poem. The words that initially seem a bit distraught or confusing because of the nature of the poem come to explain more of what she was feeling. Despite the fact that she was not a Holocaust victim/survivor she uses the Holocaust to put her feelings to an event. Reading about the Holocaust events evokes feelings in readers that mirror the inner torture that Sylvia Plath felt. Sylvia Plath continuously brings up words like “bone” and “skin” and these words make the reader feel the emotions internally. The words “skin” and “bone” subconsciously make me feel a bit uncomfortable and her use of words as an entirety in the poem all add into this feeling of discomfort.
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The autobiographical information regarding Sylvia Plath enhances interpretation of the poem “Lady Lazareth” by connecting the speakers’ experiences to Plath’s own life. The speaker begins, “I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it.” Upon further inspection into the author’s life, she attempted suicide multiple times. Thus, it may be inferred that this routine action is various suicide attempts. As the poem continues, the speaker remarks, “And like a cat I have nine times to die. This is number three,” cementing that she is, in fact, referring to death. Each time Plath attempts suicide is a form of death, as if part of her dies in every attempt. The specific trial the speaker refers to is the third, and upon the ninth they will have no tries left. Thus, the speaker acknowledges Plath’s eventual success in ending her life, whether it literally be the ninth or not. Her use of holocaust imagery highlights her dark existence, comparing her hellish struggles to that of the Jews under the Nazi’s. Her face, “a featureless, fine Jew linen,” is an expression of how restrained and captured she feels in her own life. Just as the Jews were held captive in concentration camps, the speaker is a hostage in her own life and each attempt at suicide is an attempt to escape. Her existence is so painful and torturous that she would rather be dead than endure it any further. She is withering away, “…flesh, bone, there is nothing there,” and her life is starved of joy or any will to survive. The holocaust metaphor is effective because readers can connect to this infamous period and the horrors associated with it, further illustrating the personal hell that her life is. This imagery and knowledge of Plath’s life relate the poem to her own suffering and sheds light on her miserable battle with existence.
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Learning about the history of Sylvia Plath makes the poem seem more serious. Knowing that she had a troubled life leading to an eventual suicide provides depth to the writing. I think the holocaust imagery provides a comparison to the troubles Plath went through, she related to the suffering and sense of not belonging that the Jewish were subjected to. When Plath says “I may be skin and bone, nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman” It sounds like everyone views her like she has changed because they only see the outside, however this is how she has always been. Also when she talks about having nine lives but having already used three, as well as the breath vanishing, she sounds like she knows the end is soon. Perhaps at this time she was thinking about suicide, and knew she wouldn’t live to be very old. After reading about Sylvia Plath, It seems like this poem is her trying to emotions to an extreme event because she can’t relate to the normal person, and as a result of this disconnect she is lonely and is contemplating suicide.
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After reading the autobiographical information about Sylvia Path, enhances my interpretation of the poem “Lady Lazareth”. The ability to glance into her history and expose her battle with suicide helps to exhibit real pain and sorrow throughout. Understanding that she had attempted suicide makes the line “like the cat, I have nine lives to die” reveal that although Path has not been successful in ending her life before, she plans to try again. Not only does she try again, but the autobiographical information explains that she eventually was successful in committing suicide. The lines continue to reveal her pain and fascination with dying. She says, “I do it so it feels like Hell”. This line shows that her self-harm is intentional, and her thoughts are drastic. The role of the holocaust imagery works to describe how dreadful, dark, and twisted the ideas she has about death. Using the holocaust to describe her pain is effective because the Holocaust was one of the most horrific, unforgettable events in the world’s history. This connection further emphasizes her point. She also uses effective language and words such as the line “Ash, Ash you poke and stir”. This line provides readers of what happens to the people around once one is dead. The repetition used further emphasizes what death truly means to Plath. That once one is dead, they are nothing but ash. Plath uses specific language and metaphors to express the pain felt during her life. As well as revealing how badly she hoped to die.
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After reading Plath’s biography, the message that came from her poem was a lot more clear then it was before. Her imagery used to describe how she had nine lives and she had already used three of them, “And like the cat, I have nine times to die,” referring to the three times she has almost killed herself. The use of the holocaust was, in my opinion, was used to compare the pain and suffering she must have been going through while dealing with her husband leaving her. The use of referring to her darkness as “Herr” gave it a whole new meaning to how awful she felt and how her darkness around having suicidal thoughts and doing suicidal things. Overall adding the metaphors and allusions helps the reader understand how grave the situation the writer is talking about. The additional information we were required to read adds the idea that the poem may have been somewhat of an autobiography.
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Knowing the biographical past of Sylvia Plath provides a context that gives an extra layer of meaning to her poem “Lady Lazarus”. Without knowing her past the poem could be interpreted ambiguously (although it clearly has themes of suicide but the meaning of the poem could be seen as a struggle against it but with the context of Plath’s life it becomes clear that the poem is about her intention to give in to her suicidal tendencies). An example of the ambiguity that the poem presents can be seen in the last stanza “Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.” without the context you could interpret this stanza as her getting back up from her suicide attempts scared but ready to face the world but with the context, it becomes clear that she had no intention of surviving and the stanza takes on a darker, almost demonic meaning.
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