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Themes and techniques in the poem of Sylvia plath
Lady lazarus sylvia plath poem analysis
Lady lazarus sylvia plath poem analysis
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“Lady Lazarus” provides unfiltered insight into the emotions and desires of a deeply tormented woman. Having been denied a relationship with her father, abased by a dissatisfied mother, betrayed by her husband, and deprived of the ability to take her own life, Sylvia Plath was desperately seeking control. Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” contains her evolution from a tortured and paranoid soul to a powerful feministic icon that seems to be more than human. Despite the openness of the poem, in nature and in form, the disturbing imagery works to place tremendous distance between the poet and the reader. While this places Plath at the center of a spectacle—a situation for which she clearly expresses her discontent—she secures a commanding position in which spectators could only view with detached fascination. Written in the tempestuous period surrounding Plath’s 30th birthday, the work contains vivid descriptions of her pain, but at its core it is a woman’s struggle for control. As the poem develops, Plath moves from a vulnerable state of suffering and weakness to a position in which she seizes control of life and death, warning God and Lucifer of her newfound power. Plath rises in steps throughout the poem, as if it were an outline of her strategy. The poet demonstrates the method in which she must first control her oppressors as well as her own experiences of suicide, later being rendered capable of completing this transformation as a result of her election to return to wreak havoc rather than embrace a mundane lifestyle.
Stretched thin by the tribulations of her condition, the speaker, assumed to be Plath, likens her skin to a Nazi lampshade. Having recently been revived from her third suicide attempt, Plath is not yet human; she is a la...
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... mind of a suicidal woman. The poet most likely did not intend to direct her wrath outward in the future nor did she aim to survive nine total suicides, but her emotions and reasoning contain moralistic value. In describing her desire for control, Plath conveyed to the reader what factors lead an individual to seek suicide, how to sympathize with them, and indirectly, how to provide help. Ending the poem with rebirth into a life in which Plath possesses control indicates that she retained hope of leaving her anguish behind. However, the poem contains scattered hints regarding the volatility of a suicidal individual, suggesting that the poet’s final suicide was not contemplated rationally; it was executed in a moment of overwhelming excitement. While “Lady Lazarus” is a work of literary skill, its value within the context of Plath’s life is much more valuable.
In the middle of the poem, she begins to refer to herself as a Jew, and her father the German, who began “chuffing me off like a Jew…to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belson.” What Plath’s intent here is to allow us to understand that her father was a German, and she relates his behavior as a person to a Nazi. But later, she becomes more enraged, and strips the title of God from her father, and labels him a swastika and a brute. “Every woman adores a Fascist” is Plath’s way of ...
Sylvia Plaths poem, Sow, depicts a beast of mythic proportions through various images, comparisons, and specific word choices. By presenting the sow from both the point of view of its owner, neighbor, and of the speaker, Plath paints a vivid picture of farmyard decadence that the reader can relate to.
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath: 1950-1962. 430 Ed. Karen V. Kukil. Transcribed from the original manuscripts at Smith College. New York: Anchor, 2000.
Pollitt, Katha. "A Note of Triumph [The Collected Poems]". Critical Essays on Sylvia Plath. Ed. Linda W. Wagner. Boston: G. K. Hall & Company, 1984. 67 - 72.
When Plath was in college in 1953, her downward spiral began. The spiral started off when Plath’s writing internship was not what she expected it would be. Plath was more of a personal assistant than an actual writer. This realization was a sad reality to her because her goal was to be a write...
A relationship is an emotional connection to someone involving an interaction between two or more people. There are many types of relationships, some functional and others far from being workable. I will demonstrate this through my texts of; Little Fugue, and Morning Song both poems written by Sylvia Plath; the movie, Love Actually; and the book, Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce.
Literature is the superlative resource when one is attempting to comprehend or fathom how society has transformed over the centuries. Many written works—whether fictional or nonfictional—express the views of gender roles and societies’ expectations. Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is an exemplary novel that explores these issues. Ester Greenwood was portrayed the superficial and oppressive values of the mid-twentieth century American society through her experiences of gender inequalities and social conformities. Plath’s own life was correspondingly mirrored in this novel; which in turn left the reader aware of the issues in her time period. At the conclusion of The Bell Jar, the audience realizes that she was pushed to completely conform to society.
Blood can symbolize death, but also life. One can die from the lose of too much blood, conversely, our life is created on the basis of blood as our main bodily component. The poem "Cut" by Sylvia Plath employs blood as the symbol of a woman’s power over her life to create death in suicide through the lose of too much blood. Just days before writing this poem, Plath had accidentally cut herself while cooking, all but slicing off the whole fatty tip of her thumb (Alexander 301). This kitchen accident acts as a Freudian slip of the knife that opens up a whole world of unconscious motives in a woman’s imagination, and leads to an outpouring of Plath’s feelings of castration as a women (Bundtzen 141). Plath employs images and metaphors in a speedy format, which tumble forward as her imagination struggles to name the shifts in feeling that she endures (248).
Sylvia Plath uses a diverse array of stylistic devices in "Lady Lazarus," among them allusion,
As the tone changes the perspective of the reader changes as well. There is no clear way to determine whether the speaker is responding to her situation with the appropriate amount of madness or is actually going mad and escaping into her own mind. Plath’s poem shows how a woman 's happiness was defined by her relationship to a man, which is enough to infuriate or drive any woman insane. The speaker struggles to continue her very existence because of her lost love. It is true that the speaker is very emotional and feels things very deeply, but that is not enough to prove that she had lost her mind. By the end of the poem the speaker seems to realize that she is wasting her time waiting on a man. She would rather have a present love that is completely unfathomable than a real love that is not around. The repetition in this poem makes the reader believe this loss is actually causing the speaker to lose her mind, but through changing tones that mirror the emotions anyone would go through in a situation of loss like this the speaker’s response is completely
Sylvia Plath’s life was full of disappointment, gloominess and resentment. Her relationship status with her parents was hostile and spiteful, especially with her father. Growing up during World War II did not help the mood of the nation either, which was dark and dreary. At age 8 Plath’s father of German ancestry died of diabetes and even though their relationship was never established nor secure, his death took a toll on her. “For Sylvia, who had been his favorite, it was an emotional holocaust and an experience from which she never fully recovered” (Kehoe 90). Since she was so young she never got to work out her unsettled feelings with him. Even at age eight, she hid when he was around because she was fearful of him. When she was in his presence his strict and authoritarian figure had left an overpowering barrier between their relationship. Sadly enough by age eight Plath instead of making memories with her dad playing in the yard she resented him and wanted nothing to do with him (Kehoe). These deep-seated feelings played a major role in Plath’s poetry writings. Along with his “hilterian figure,” her father’s attitude towards women was egotistical and dismissive, uncondemning. This behavior infuriated Plath; she was enraged about the double standard behavior towards women. Plath felt controlled in male-dominated world (Lant). “Because Plath associates power so exclusively with men, her conviction that femininity is suffocating and inhibiting comes as no surprise” (Lant 631). This idea of a male-dominated world also influenced Plath’s writing. Unfortunately, Plath married a man just like her father Ted Hughes. “Hughes abandonment apparently stirred in her the memories and feelings she had struggled with when her ...
The Applicant by Sylvia Plath reveals the characteristics that are longed by men through personification and other poetic devices. The poem suggests that women need to be visibly pleasing and all around perfect in order to please and benefit men. Women have always been objectified in society, and this poem portrays that by substituting the word “woman” for “it”. As if a women does not even get to have a respectable label and instead is placed among objects. Bit by bit, parts of the poem represents evidence for this theory.
Giles, Richard F. “Sylvia Plath.” Magill’s Critical Survey of Poetry. Ed. Frank N. Magill, b. 1875. Pasadena: Salem Press, 1992.
Overall, the imagery that Plath creates is framed by her diction and is used to convey her emotions toward all relationships and probably even her own marriage to Ted Hughes, who had rude, disorderly habits. Even the structure of the poem is strict in appearance as each stanza ends with a period and consists of exactly six lines. In addition, the persona of the poem is very detached and realistic, so much that it is hard to distinguish between her and Plath, herself. However, Plath insinuates that the woman actually wants love deep down, but finds the complexity and unpredictability of love to be frightening. As a result, she settles for solitude as a defense against her underlying fear.
Through her dark and intense poetry, Sylvia Plath left an eternal mark on the literary community. Her personal struggles with depression, insecurities, and suicidal thoughts influenced her poetry and literary works. As a respected twentieth century writer, Sylvia Plath incorporated various literary techniques to intensify her writing. Her use of personification, metaphors, and allusions in her poems “Ariel,” “Lady Lazarus,” and “Edge”, exemplifies her talent as a poet and the influence her own troubled life had on her poetry.