Humanity Lost

Nathan Kleinman

Essay #2 English 102

Cline

17 September 2011

Humanity Lost

Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” is a most intriguing poem. It has very descriptive and detailed wording, yet it remains vague and elusive as to its subject’s identity. There are many elements that play at the emotions as one delves deeper and deeper towards the subjects true identity. However, this elusiveness works to its advantage, as the true theme of the story, or “moral” if you will, is about that loss of identity; the idea that history, with all its facts, stories and more especially its relics, is really about people, and too often these people lose their humanity through time in our eyes.

The Humanity

The most direct method of communicating or illustrating the theme of “Lady Lazarus” would be to start with history and then show the humanity in it. Part of the beauty of “Lady Lazarus” is that it does the opposite. From the very title of the piece it appears that we are speaking of a person, and this is re-enforced throughout the piece. “And I a smiling woman. / I am only thirty.” (Plath lines 19-20).

There begins to be an image formed of a young, happy woman who we can imagine living a normal life and we relate with. This person portrays feelings all throughout the piece: Resignation, “I have done it again./One year in every ten/I manage it” (Plath lines 1-3) and Determination, “I may be skin and bone, / Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.” (Plath lines 33-34); Defiance, “Peel off the napkin / O my enemy. / Do I terrify?” (Plath lines 10-11) and Anger, “Herr God, Herr Lucifer / Beware / Beware.” (Plath lines 79-81). We begin to feel a kinship, a sort of bond with this mysterious, unidentified person. Though it is not written expressly, through our mind’s eye we can imagine a complete life, a family perhaps, a childhood, friends and others. In our minds stands a living, breathing person.

The History

Shortly after the concept of a person is introduced, our image of this person or their identity in our minds begins to get a little muddled. When the subject begins to speak of her skin being “Bright as a Nazi lampshade” (Plath line 5), with a foot being merely “a paperweight” (Plath line 7) and a smiling face as a “featureless, fine / Jew linen” (Plath lines 8-9), the true horror of the impersonal history lessons comes to light. This is someone we feel that we have come to know. Now, through of the horrors of the Hollocaust, this young woman has been reduced to simple, impersonal furniture.

Now we introduce a new kind of person on to the scene: all of us.

The peanut-crunching crowd / Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot—— / The big strip tease. / Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands / My knees.

                                                                                                            (Plath lines 26-32)

To the entire “peanut-crunching crowd” (Plath line 26) our Lady Lazarus is just a lamp, an odd relic of a far off time. Her humanity has been sold for “a charge, a very large charge” (Plath line 61); for an entrance fee. For an entrance fee, all that she identifies with on earth is laid out for all to see. How often have we been part of that crowd that walked away thinking, “Well, that sure was a lot of neat stuff” and then forgot about it or had the feeling that we once we left we were now “returning to reality?” Can we actually realize that this was someone’s life? It deserves more dignity and respect than we often give it; otherwise, what is the difference between that and “The big strip tease” (Plath line 29) as it is referred to here by Lady Lazarus? Here the theme can be readily applied to all history, but it is truly the most dramatic in this particular setting. Though there is no dignity, no humanity left in this scenario, the subject still chooses to retain ownership of “my hands / My knees.” (Plath lines 31-32). It helps to drive home the point of “what if?” “What if they were here? What would they say? How would they feel?”

The Words

Throughout the entire piece, there is a sense of forboding and a melancholy aire about it. It’s a feeling that takes more than one reading, as the first three lines, though possessing an almost celebratory atmosphere in the first reading, now feel dull and lifeless, like a museum display: “I have done it again./One year in every ten/I manage it” (Plath lines 1-3). Though all of the words are nice enough, speaking of bright Nazi lamp shades and fine Jewish linen (Plath lines 5-9), enough of the sublties of the message get through, and dark images and stories from classes and books fill our mind, and they never leave us. Throughout the whole poem there is a feeling of subdued horror, yet the words themselves do not express it, it is what the imagination conjures up in response to them.

So What?

For the last few minutes for you and the last few hours for me, we’ve been in a sort of coma where this thesis was born and developed and where the whole universe was a simple poem. So what? In the REAL world, what does this analysis have to do with anything? What real effect does it have in life? Well, in a small way, it has changed mine. No longer do I avoid the endless monologs from guides at Montezuma’s Castle, or skip the signs at Tuzigoot. I still might not like the history classes, but now I do know that many peoples’ lives (real people mind you) revolved around the events told of. It makes many of the more horrific events in history hit home a little better, as opposed to just being stories told about. In the final lines of the poem, they can be interpreted many ways, but I believe that they point to just this fact: if we fail to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer   

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair   

And I eat men like air.

                                                               (Plath lines 79-84)

Works Cited:

Plath, Sylvia. “Lady Lazarus.” Poetryfoundation.org. Poetry Foundation, 2011. Web. 10 September 2011