Lady Lazarus
In Sylvia Plath's poem, "Lady Lazarus", she horrifically describes the yearning for attention she has always wanted. By using the most expressive ways possible she entrances the audience's imaginative minds by unleashing this literary work. She uses symbolism, theme, and imagery throughout this poem to help see the true meaning of this piece. "Lady Lazarus" is a poem meant to open the audience's eyes to the world of evil and shame. Perhaps the significance of death in this poem is a symbol of what has happened or what is yet to come. In every way possible, Plath has found ways to incorporate the doings of the Holocaust into this literary work. As reading this poem, the true definition and meaning is to derive all of her weaknesses and heartfelt guilt into one memorable moment like the Holocaust. The speaker does not only convey her true yearning from the poem, she also concocts a theme. The theme of this poem is the increased value of dying. She places such a high value on death. She wants to be wealthy in that sense, so she wants to give the most valuable thing she has--her life. From all the tries, she still fails miserably. This only gives her more strength and more of a determination to end it. In line 1, "I have done it
Just as theme plays an important role in what this poem means, so does imagery. This poem is filled with violent imagery. In line 4-5, "A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade," the audience is seeing this horrific image of Nazi's skinning the Jew's skin to use as their lampshades. Lady Lazarus wants the audience to see and feel what it must have been like for those prisoners in the Nazi camps. In line 28, "Them unwrap me hand and foot," is used to make the audience see what she really wants. She wants to be unwrapped from her life and by doing that she has to die first. As gross as line 42 sounds, "And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls," the audience is captivated by this unusual feature. They can see the slimy worms slithering across her whole body. While the audience is still coming off of that shock with worms, Lady Lazarus takes another step into death. In line 82-84, "Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air," she is saying that she uses men for her own pleasure, and that all men are scorned. Most of the officers in the Nazi camps were men, so her reference to eating men like air can affect the way the men treated the prisoners. From reading "Lady Lazarus", it is evident that Sylvia Plath's writing is gory as
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 861
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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