Eve Kleinz

AP Literature
Poetry Explication
6 March 2017
Explication of Lady Lazarus

In Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, the speaker in the poem doubles as the author. Sylvia
Plath writes about her multiple suicide attempts throughout her life, each of them in different
decades. I am only thirty../this is number three. The occasion changes throughout the poem
as Plath discusses her suicide attempts and reactions to those attempts. Plath wrote this for
herself since during this time period, as having depression as a woman in her time period had
little cure or release. Because of this, she did the only thing she knew how to: wrote about her
feelings to let them out. However, although she wrote this for herself, she was also writing this
for society and especially men. Her references to strip teases prove that she thought that her
attempting suicide was about as serious as a strip tease for men in that time period. Also, the
structure in this poem is described as an unrhymed terza since it has no rhyme scheme and is
written in lines grouped into three.
One of the most unique aspects of Lady Lazarus is the emotion behind the lines. Plath
uses her depression to display an irony throughout her poem. When she writes and like a cat, I
have nine times to die she is being literal. Plath did try to commit suicide multiple times and
failed multiple times, however her tone is ironic. She brings humor to her depression not just to
make herself feel better but also to bring attention to the responses she was getting from men in
society. No one took her depression seriously and this is reflected in her ironic tone of the poem.
Her tone also uniquely romanticizes death. For example, Dying/ is an art, like everything else / I
do it exceptionally well. Most people would not consider dying an art, they would consider it a
tragedy. Although Plaths depression was serious, she romanticizes and mocks the concept of
death throughout the poem as well as in multiple other of her poems.
Furthermore, when Plath writes about dying as an art, she is adding a third party or
peanut crunching crowd to both her deaths and her resurrections. By attempting to kill herself
so many times she is almost punishing the crowd for driving her to the act. She both invites and
criticizes the crowd for being so invested in her dark impulses, and this criticism could possibly
even extend to readers since they are reading the poem to explore her twisted and dark mind. She
continues this criticism by relating the crowd to the German people when Jews were being
persecuted during World War II. She hates that they come to the resurection part of her attempts
since she doesn't want to be resurrected, leading to a never ending cycle of invitation and
loathing.
Lastly, this poem contains a push towards feminism. Readers watch her struggle for
attention and recognition for a mental illness in a mainly patriarchal society. She thinks that her
death will come and pass with nothing more than excitement from the crowd, however she also
believes that in the end, she will rise and eat men like air. In her mind, she is gaining her
power in a world when she doesn't have much power but controlling when she dies.
In conclusion, Lady Lazarus, is a complicated exploration of the responsibility we have
for each other's unhappiness, and the power that society has on individuals emotions, rather than
simply a depressing suicide note.