Lady Lazarus Sylvia Plath Analysis

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer who suffered from depression. The death of her father, when she was only eight years old, was what triggered her depression. And because of that, most of her work revolve around the death of her father and her attempts of suicide. In her poem Lady Lazarus is about her attempts of suicide and how she feels about death. This theme of death and suicide can also be seen in the poems Daddy, which is about her deceased father, and Edge which is about a person who is about to commit suicide. Sylvia plath´s poetry centrally tends to discuss suicide and death as the main subject, which can be exemplified by the poem Lady Lazarus.

In the first three verses of the poem Lady Lazarus, Plath presents the idea of suicide and death; this can be proved in the first verse. "I have done it again" by being translated as "I have tried to commit suicide again." But, the reader will only know about what she is talking about until later when she says,

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Plath uses this stanza to communicate that she is talking about death by using some gruesome imagery about a corpse that is in a state of decomposition and ready to become ash .

Additionally, Plath uses a simile to show the reader that she attempted suicide three times by comparing herself to a cat with nine lives, but has already used three of her lives. “The first time it happened I was ten” Which is when her father died. Plath then proceeds to tell the reader her second attempt and how she wanted “To last it out and not come back at all.” The poem could also be interpreted about her third attempt of suicide when she says “This is Number Three.” and then goes on talking about how she feels and how her attempts of killing herself are like a spectacle in which a “crowd Shoves in to see.” Plath describes death as a performance in which she does it “exceptionally well.” However, even though the reader knows at the end of the poem that she tried to kill herself, we don’t know how she does it, she only tells us that she did it.

Moreover, Plath seems to be talking about death at a glance it seems like she is happy with the thought of death.

Comparatively, in the sixth stanza, Path, refers to death as “the grave cave” and “how soon the flesh will be at home on her”, this fragment can be the representation of how calm she feels with killing herself and the connection she feels with doing it on her own house. Plath considers death as a satisfactory, comfortable act; and it’s here where her masochistic self surfaces, it provides an insight on how well at ease she feels with death. She also uses her death as a show. She does this by changing the language to that of a

carnival.
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.

As a have shown, throughout Sylvia Plath tends to talk about suicide and death in her work and Lady Lazarus is a perfect example. In the poem, Path talks about she tried to kill herself three times but failed. As the poem progresses, Path discusses death as some sort of performance and she is the main attraction.