Lady Lazarus

September 18, 2014

Sylvia Plath(1935) poet and novelist, born in Boston, Massachu-

setts. She married Ted Hughes in 1956. After teaching in America she and Hughes returned to England in 1959.

Her first volume of poetry, The Colossus, ap-peared in 1960, and in 1963 her only novel The Bell Jar. Less than a month after its publi-cation she committed suicide in London.

Lady Lazarus Plath describes the speaker's oppression with the

use of World War II Nazi Germany allusions and im-ages.

She develops a German image to denote Nazism and in turn, oppression. She accounts this connota-tion to the doctors in the poem, such as calling the doctor Herr Doktor, because they continue to bring her back to life when all she wants is to finally die.

At the end of the poem, she is represented by the image of a phoenix. This next decade will be dif-ferent for the speaker because she plans to "eat" the men, or doctors, so they cannot revive her next time she faces death.

Paradox of Death

“As a seashell./ They had to call and call/ And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.”

“Dying/ Is an art, like everything else. /I do it exceptionally well”

My Dying, a Victim of Holocaust

So, so, Herr Doktor. / So, Herr Enemy./ I am your opus,/ I am your valuable, / The pure gold baby/ That melts to a shriek. /I turn and burn.

Author’s Imaginary Victory over Nazi(Men)

Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.