I do it exceptionally well. So, Herr Enemy. Analysis of ‘Lady Lazarus ‘ by Sylvia Plath August 23, 2020 November 4, 2016 by Pritesh Chakraborty In this intensely self-dramatizing poem, she wrote shortly before her own suicide in February 1963, Plath adopted highly strained metaphors to describe her psychic state. And this inability to feel is precisely what causes her to suffer. This precious work of art however melts down to nothing but a shriek (piercing cry) and then starts to burn. What a million filaments. Throughout the poem, the speaker seems to be talking about death at a glance it seems like she is happy with the though of death. One year in every ten I manage it—— A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A … I do it exceptionally well. Plath does not reveal the age of her second encounter with her own death, which was her first suicide attempt. She refers to the Doktor, God, and the Devil all as men who hold some kind of power over her. This is so good. The title “Lady Lazarus” came from the figure Lazarus from the Bible. However, as a teenager, she suffered a loss of faith following the death of her father, and later began to show outward symptoms of depression. The third line alludes to the foot (also mentioned in her poem Daddy) which is a symbol of the speaker's life. She points out various parts of her body. As a seashell. Indeed she really hates men and the whole of the patriarchal society itself. Or she plans to come back as an immortal after she has died to take her revenge on men. It is most likely that it was written from Plath's personal experience as she was known for her suicidal nature. Obviously, the narrator in the poem “Lady Lazarus” need not be misunderstood as the representative of Plath-advocated feminism. She calls her exit from the tomb, “a big strip tease” revealing that when she came close to death, but was brought back to life, the people around her were there not to rejoice with her or comfort her, but to be entertained by her. She reveals that the hard part is coming back and facing the crowd. Form and content in harmony, of sorts. Lady Lazarus sees herself as a victim, or a “Jew” in a concentration camp. That melts to a shriek. We soon learn, however, that Plath intends to identify with the Lazarus decaying in the tomb rather than the Lazarus who had been brought back to life. The conversational tone continues into the second line, as if the speaker is fully too familiar with her personal history and has been 'measuring' out whatever it is she has done, but not in coffee spoons (like Eliot's Prufrock). Throughout "Lady Lazarus," the speaker uses extended metaphors of death and resurrection to express her own personal suffering. I have done it again. Stanza 16: Look for more anaphora in stanzas 17,20,22,23 and 27. Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——. There is now a crowd, a pushy audience who are eating peanuts eager to see some kind of show or performance. This is not a straight autobiographical confessional poem at all but a created drama, a set of scenes in which Plath's frustrations and struggles can play out. Or rather, she feels nothing just as the dead feel nothing. The seashell image enhances the idea of someone being tight to themselves, darkened, closed off from the world. She reveals that she thinks it should be easy enough to end her life, and stay put. It could be a symbol of domestic life, dull routine, which Sylvia Plath at times detested...so it ate her up. Flesh has been turned into soap,(another death camp reference) and there's a wedding ring (allusion to her marriage with Ted Hughes which failed) and a gold filling from a tooth. Most of us know that dying is not something that can be considered an art form. 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