Sylvia Plath: Lady Lazarus (Ariel)

The poem is one of 28 stanzas of 3 lines each. Its opening is done in a casual tone and gives off an ironic sense of achievement as the poet comes back triumphant over her ability to survive death. Plath sees herself as ‘a sort of walking miracle’, drawing parallel with Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead in the Bible, John 11. Plath sees herself as the female Lazarus, who has been raised from the dead 3 times and hence the miracle. Like the sense of miracle, Plath sees her deaths like Lazarus’s for they are not normal sort of deaths.

Plath then draws in the atrocities of the Holocaust by referring to an appalling fact that had emerged from the trials of the Nazi war criminals, was that a concentration camp commandant had lampshades made of human skin. This brings about the deep sense of suffering that the Jews had gone through, probably alluding to her own sense of suffering within. Her ‘right foot a paperweight’, signifying inertia and the inability to move. ‘My face a featureless, fi

Yet, the fact that the whole process has to be repeated in a way undermines this triumph of hers. However, it can be clearly seen that the cycle of death and birth proves unavoidable but the desire for new beginning remains constant.

‘Herr God, Herr Lucifer’, here Plath unites both heaven and hell, two of the greatest powers of the world and yet even they have to ‘beware’. ‘Out of the ash’ brings in reference to the myth of the Phoenix where this fabulous bird burns itself to death and rises singing out of its ashes. Like the Phoenix, Plath has risen from Herr Doktor’s ovens, and as a new being that is asserting independent creative powers for after her psychic death, this female creature has become stronger than the creator himself. Plath here, sees herself as a woman defiantly asserting power over her body and these are the benefits she receives from having gone through the suffering of the rebirth process. In this rebirth, she has freed herself from male dependency and sees creative energy, not exclusively the property of the male species.

Some topics in this essay:
Bible John, Doktor’ German, Herr Doktor’s, , Phoenix Terror, Lucifer’ Plath, Lady Lazarus, Lazarus Jesus, Phoenix Plath, process rebirth, feel real, raised dead, holocaust imagery, sense suffering, suffering jews, death plath, ability survive, pure gold, makes feel,