An Analysis of Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

In Sylvia Plaths poem, Lady Lazarus, she horrifically describes the yearning for attention she has always wanted. By using the most expressive ways possible she entrances the audiences imaginative minds by unleashing this literary work. She uses symbolism, theme, and imagery throughout this poem to help see the true meaning of this piece. Lady Lazarus is a poem meant to open the audiences eyes to the world of evil and shame. Perhaps the significance of death in this poem is a symbol of what has happened or what is yet to come.

In every way possible, Plath has found ways to incorporate the doings of the Holocaust into this literary work. As reading this poem, the true definition and meaning is to derive all of her weaknesses and heartfelt guilt into one memorable moment like the Holocaust.

The speaker does not only convey her true yearning from the poem, she also concocts a theme. The theme of this poem is the increased value of dying.

She places such a high value on death. She wants to be wealthy in that sense, so she wants to give the most valuable thing she has– her life. From all the tries, she still fails miserably. This only gives her more strength and more of a determination to end it. In line 1, I have done it again, Lady Lazarus is expressing her frustration of committing suicide again, but to no avail. She knows she is not dead. Line 21 mentions. And like the cat I have nine times to die.

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She is referring to the countless times of dying, but being brought back by somebody who finds her. Unlike the victims of the Holocaust she can come back. She tries to commit suicide, and each time she feels that she succeeds she ends up alive. In line 43-45, Lazarus says, Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. She is putting a sense of irony into this theme, saying that she has control over how she wants to die. The Jews didnt have any control of how or when they died. She knows she is in deaths reach, but she is not afraid. She takes dying as a form of art, not as a mourning process. She can express herself in deaths language fluently when it comes her time.

Just as theme plays an important role in what this poem means, so does imagery. This poem is filled with violent imagery. In line 4-5, A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, the audience is seeing this horrific image of Nazis skinning the Jews skin to use as their lampshades. Lady Lazarus wants the audience to see and feel what it must have been like for those prisoners in the Nazi camps. In line 28, Them unwrap me hand and foot, is used to make the audience see what she really wants. She wants to be unwrapped from her life and by doing that she has to die first. As gross as line 42 sounds, And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls, the audience is captivated by this unusual feature. They can see the slimy worms slithering across her whole body. While the audience is still coming off of that shock with worms, Lady Lazarus takes another step into death. In line 82-84, Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air, she is saying that she uses men for her own pleasure, and that all men are scorned. Most of the officers in the Nazi camps were men, so her reference to eating men like air can affect the way the men treated the prisoners.

Symbolism is evident in this piece of literary work. The Holocaust and the way that Lady Lazarus defines her way of dying with that of the Nazi prisoners, is outrageous. She feels as if her own accounts of pain can ever match up to what the Jews had to endure in those concentration camps. In line 4, …a walking miracle…, can be described as a symbol of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Indeed, they are a miracle for having taken all this torture and hell to be where they are today. The big strip tease, in line 29, symbolizes the way Lady Lazarus is making herself evolve into what she wanted all along to be–dead. She takes the audience step by step in showing her many plights in trying to commit suicide. In line 26, The peanut-crunching crowd, she is referring to society as this crowd, watching her big unraveling strip tease into death. Finally, in line 61, And there is a charge, a very large charge, Lady Lazarus is referring to herself as one of the Holocaust members. For every tourist attraction that displays the Holocaust, whether it be movies, museums, or libraries, there is a charge.

From reading Lady Lazarus, it is evident that Sylvia Plaths writing is gory as well as unpredictable. She uses her symbolism, imagery and theme to incorporate the true meaning of the poem. The Holocaust serves as a major part in this poem. The yearning for attention and the guilt leads to what a normal person would call suicide, but in Lady Lazarus case, a form of art.