Analysis Of Lady Lazarus And Tulips By Sylvia Plath

Many people come from a haunted past, leaving indefinite scars in their memory. This causes permanent numbness in their hearts and leaves them with nothing but isolation from the their loved ones. These damaged memories can later flood the individual causing him/her to create an enemy within themselves. The internal scars within a person stay hidden; however, certain circumstances may draw out he/she hidden past and shows him/her to the world. In “Lady Lazarus” and “Tulips,” Sylvia Plath creates a theme of darkness through imagery of death and sorrow that reveals the sadness she feels due to her haunted past. Sylvia Plath, an innocent scarred by her memories, shares her story through her considerably dark poems. On October 27, 1932 in

According to Dyne, “Plath borrowed the miracle of Lazarus, the myth of the phoenix, the hype of the circus, and the horror of the holocaust to prophesy for herself a blazing triumph over her feelings of tawdriness and victimization” (397). By using the title of this poem, Sylvia Plath creates an allusion. She refers to the biblical Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead. According to one source, “…like the Lazarus of the title, its persona miraculously survives each brush with death” (Maramarco 85). Within this poem, Plath also compares herself to appalling remnants from the Holocaust:“my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade / My right foot / A paperweight / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen” (Rooney). Sylvia imagines that she is a primary victim of the horrific Holocaust just trying to survive day by

The death of her father also acts as a key factor to the beginning of her depression. The numbness in her heart leaves a space full of loneliness longing to be filled. This void space in her heart is then consumed by the motives of suicide, which stands as the main influence of “Lady Lazarus.” Between the sudden death of her father and the cheating acts of her husband, Sylvia has many heart-breaking influences to write this poem. In “Tulips,” Sylvia Plath lies in a hospital room surrendering herself to whiteness, trying to break free of her tortured soul. She has recently endured the tragedy of a miscarriage, which adds another scar to her memory. As Sylvia is recovering from her minor procedure, the vase of tulips acts a bully to her imagination. Hour by hour she watches the nurses walk past her room making her feel invisible to the world around her. As the minutes pass, she becomes claustrophobic as the four hospital walls seem to be closing in on