Response to "Lady Lazarus"

Probably the most intriguing of the poems to this reader was Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus. It is surprisingly complex, never actually stating what the subject of the title was; only leaving reference after reference, in its mournful tone, leading the reader to a subject that is little known and considered only in horror.  Only in a second reading does one begin to understand what the poem actually said, and it takes several more readings just to get a glimpse of the meaning behind it.

 Starting with the title, and adding the first stanza, “I have done it again./One year in every ten/I manage it” (Plath, lines 1-3), it seemed to be a story of a woman who lives one year out of every ten, or some other fantastic scenario found mostly in fairy tales. After all, Lazarus is a character well known as having died, and then been brought back to life. This more upbeat tune is quickly drowned out by the line “Bright as a Nazi lampshade” (line 5). At this in juncture, stories from history classes and books on the Holocaust flood to the forefront of one’s mind, all bearing images of furniture made with human pieces. Step by step, line by line, the reader is lead down a dark road to a place he do not wish to be, but feel compelled, nigh entreated to go. Mention of appendages as “paperweights” (line7) and the subject’s face as “Jew linen” (line 9) only add to that foreboding scene. The setting in the reader’s mind shifts a bit, as now a new character is introduced.

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.

(lines 26-32)

Here one feels the repugnance and isolation of being an abomination on display. There is profound sorrow, of lost humanity, yet also, rising determination: “I may be skin and bone, / Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.” (lines 33-34) “And I a smiling woman. / I am only thirty.” (lines 19-20) Yet that humanity is sold for “a charge, a very large charge” (line 61). Throughout the whole poem there is a feeling of subdued horror, yet the words themselves do not evoke it, it is what the imagination conjures up in response to them. By the end, one’s sickened fascination is growing weary, when then come the startling and ominous final stanzas:

Herr God, Herr Lucifer   

Beware

Beware.

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair   

And I eat men like air.

                                                                           (lines 79-84)

Works Cited:

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