Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

Lady Lazarus

'A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen," (lines 4-6). Sylvia Plath's poem "Lady Lazarus" is pervaded by chilling imagery evoking Nazi concentration camps and the decay of human flesh. Yet the tone of "Lady Lazarus" is more sarcastic than sad, more angry than fearful. Plath's poem describes a third failed suicide attempt: the poem begins "I have done it again. / One year in every ten / I manage it," (lines 1-3). However, far from being glad that the doctors have rescued the poet from her demise, the narrator despises "Herr Doktor" for interfering in the "art" of dying, an "art" she performs "exceptionally well," (lines 44; 45). The narrator acknowledges her preoccupation with death, and admits freely her determination to persist in her suicide attempts: "I am only thirty. / And like the cat I have nine times to die," (lines 20-21). Although she failed on her third attempt, the narrator remains confident of her eventual victory. The narrator also views the doctor's interference in her dying as an egotistical act of arrogance. Comparing the doctor to a Nazi is a heavy analogy of the patriarchal and oppressive nature of the modern medical system. The narrator also suggests that in saving her, the doctor plays God just as Jesus did in the New Testament story of Lazarus. The tone of "Lady Lazarus" is sarcastic, ironic, full of mockery of death and of the patriarchal establishment.

One of the ways the poet conveys a tone of sarcasm and irony in "Lady Lazarus" is through imagery, simile, and metaphor. For example, in line 4 the narrator describes herself as "A sort of walking miracle," and then states, "my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade," (line 5). The narrator does not seriously suggest that she is a "walking miracle" simply because her suicide attempt was arrested. In fact, in a later stanza, the narrator again evokes the word "miracle" to sarcastically suggest that what the doctors do is far from being miracle work. Also, to compare her skin to a "Nazi lampshade" is a curious poetic devise that is loaded with sarcasm and dark humor. Sarcastic imagery concordant with the analogy of Nazism also occurs in the following stanza, in which the narrator compares her face with "a featureless, fine / Jew linen," (lines 8-9). Later, the narrator's face is far from being featureless, as she describes her sardonic smile, her nose, and her "full set of teeth," (line 13). The narrator likens herself to the eerie image of a skull, even though she is not yet dead. By doing this, she also mocks the doctor's attempts to stop her from killing herself.

Other sarcasm-laden ironic imagery includes that of her performing a mummy strip tease: "The peanut-crunching crowd / Shoves in to see / Them unwrap me hand and foot / The big strip tease," (lines 26-29). The image of the mummy strip tease is darkly humorous. The narrator's calling dying an "art" is also a sarcastic metaphor, one that compromises the true art of Plath's poetry. Finally, the narrator bursts out a blatently sarcastic line in stanza 24 "Do not think I underestimate your great concern," (line 72). The doctors really have little genuine concern for the narrator's well-being. Rather, the whole act of saving her is "theatrical," reminiscent of a circus act, a strip tease, or another form of entertainment (line 51). Ultimately, comparing herself with Lazarus is a sarcastic, ironic analogy. Simply surviving suicide is nothing near the miracle of raising a dead man from the grave. Yet the way the doctors have proclaimed her survival a "miracle" hints that they believe strongly in their own God-like powers.