Lady Lazarus By Sylvia Plath Essay

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Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath both convey Plath’s feelings of subjugation and hopelessness. She struggled to make herself feel heard over the male voices that were constantly silencing her. First from her father and then her husband. Plath uses Holocaust imagery to illustrate her battle against overwhelming male oppression she faced. Plath recreated herself as a victimized Jewish woman punished by Nazis— who metaphorically represent the male reign that she feels has crushed her freedom and individuality. This powerful and shocking metaphor is used to criticize patriarchal views and belief. The theme of death and suicide is heavily present as well. It is well known that Plath had multiple suicide attempts and “Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy” …show more content…

Plath sees herself as Lazarus because he was brought back from death and essentially born again. “ I have done it again. / One year in every ten / I manage it” (Plath 1-3). By the time she had written “Lady “Lazarus” Plath had attempted suicide three times. The first time she was only a little girl and has since said it was an accident. But “The second time [she] meant / To last it out and not come back at all” (37-38). Each time she has tried to end her life she is brought back. This has given Plath the idea that she controls her life and death. And that each time she is brought back she is reborn into a better, stronger person. “And like the cat I have nine times to die / This is Number Three / What a trash / To annihilate each decade” (21-24). Plath believes, like a cat, she has multiple times she can die and come back to life. She literally calls her life “a trash” that should be destroyed each decade. Because each time she does she can begin a new life that will be better than the previous one. Jon Rosenblatt says this about Plath’s feelings of rebirth:
The entire symbolic procedure of death and rebirth in "Lady Lazarus" has been deliberately chosen by the speaker. She enacts her death repeatedly in order to cleanse herself of the "million filaments" of guilt and anguish that torment her. After she has returned to the womblike state of being trapped in her cave, like the biblical Lazarus, or of being rocked "shut as a seashell," she expects to emerge reborn in a new form

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