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Lady Lazarus: An Insight

The moment I read the title Lady Lazarus, something clicked. I have seen or heard the
word lazarus somewhere before, but it took me sometime to recollect exactly where.
And then I realized that the word was associated with one of my favourite comic book
superhero, The Batman. In the Batman franchise, Batman had an arch enemy, who is
coincidently his mentor as well, called Ra’s al Ghul. This supervillain had the power to
resurrect himself from the death, with the help of a place called the lazarus pit.
Everytime he dies, he will be sent to this lazarus pit to be brought back to life. The
moment I remembered this, I directly associated the word lazarus with resurrection, or
coming back to life. But I wasn’t convinced, the fact that a poet could have used a
word from the comic books as the title of the poem. That’s when I started to search for
the real meaning of the title itself. Note that I haven’t even started to read the poem.
The fact that the title was very familiar and intriguing made me look for the meaning
straight away before jumping into the poem itself. So I decided to search for the real
meaning for the word. As always, I resorted to google for assistance. And what I found
was very interesting. Lazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of
the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle of Jesus in the Gospel of John, in
which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death. As you can see, there is a
reoccurring theme connected with the word, which was resurrection and rebirth. And
another interesting thing that I would like to point out is that Lazarus was actually a
male. And the fact that the poet chose to label the poem as Lady Lazarus shows some
interesting insight on what was the poem about. That is one thing that I like about the
poem and the poet. They tried to give the poem an introduction in the title itself, letting
the reader know what the poem is going to be about. By my interpretation just by the
title itself, I roughly understood the poem to be about the rebirth of women.

Before analyzing the poem, let’s talk about the poet first. Note that this is just for
information and not as an interpretation of the poem. A poet’s background should
never interfere with their works and it should always be looked at in a separate context.
Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist,
and short-story writer. Born in Boston, she studied at Smith College and Newnham

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College at the University of Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a poet and writer.
She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United
States and then in England. They had two children, Frieda and Nicholas, before
separating in 1962. Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, and was
treated multiple times with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). She took her own life in
1963. Plath is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best
known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel,
and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. In
1982, she won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems.

Let’s look at the poem in an overall sense before going in detail. When I first read the
poem, on the surface, I thought this poem was about suicidal tendencies and how the
persona comes back to life again and again. The reason for this was the choice of
words that the author used such as dying and hell and how the poem went on to
describe a person who dies every decade just to be brought back to life to suffer the
same faith again and again, an endless cycle of life and death so to speak. But there
was another reoccurring theme in the poem that made me question my initial
assumption. The persona was referring to male as her enemy. The usage of the word
‘herr’ repeatedly suggested that men was one of the focusing point for this poem. For
those who are not so familiar with the word ‘herr’, it is used among German-speaking
people as a title equivalent to mister. Taking all these into account, I came to a
conclusion that the poem was not about life and death itself, rather it was a symbol for
another theme which was oppression. The oppression of females by the males and
the struggles of females in fighting it. This was the main theme for this poem.

Though it is slightly autobiographical, the poem must be interpreted symbolically and

psychologically without limiting it to the poet’s life experience alone. The extremity of
anger in this poem is not justifiable as something possible with a normal person in real
life. Besides, it is essential to understand from the psychoanalytical point of view, that
the poem does not literally express reality alone: it is the relieving anger and
frustration, and an alternative outlet of the neurotic energy in the form of poetic
expression. Furthermore, it is necessary to understand the anger as being directed
against the general forces of inhumanity, violence and destruction only symbolized by
the males in the poem. By a process of association and surrealism, the protest moves
from common males to Hitler, his experimenting doctor, the scavengers of gold on

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dead Jews, the dentists who had a turn before the corpses were disposed for leather,
soap, nightshades and fertilizer. The individual is associatively linked to inhumanity
and oppression. Though the persona intended to die, just yielding to death will not
annihilate her. She completes the poem with a final comeback. The poem is technically
a dramatic monologue. The title ironically identifies a female Lazarus; whereas the
original Lazarus was male, the present speaker is identifying herself with a Lazarus
different in sex, behavior, and everything. The persona is a figure who wants to subvert
all that she can of the tradition that attempts to bring you back and torture, rather than
let you choose death. This female figure also represents the oppressed modern
woman conscious of the fact that the male society will bring her back to life, because
it needs to satisfy itself by oppressing the woman.

The first stanza is always an important part of the poem as very often would one find
the crux of the whole poem in it. As for this poem, the first stanza was referring to the
persona’s various suicide attempts throughout her life. She’s saying she’s done it
again, and she has made another attempt at taking her own life. When she says one
year in every ten she has attempted to kill herself, she says this in a way that gives
the impression that she doesn’t see this as a very big deal, it’s just something that
happens every so often. Although at first it seems like the poet is actually committing
suicide, it’s actually a symbolism for oppression, female being the victims in a male
dominated world, the dilemmas of women in a patriarchal society to say the least.

Another interesting line in the poem was:

‘Dying

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.’

By describing dying as an art, she includes a spectator to both her deaths and
resurrections. Because the death is a performance, it necessarily requires others. In
large part, she kills herself to punish them for driving her to it. The eager "peanut-
crunching crowd" is invited but criticized for their gratification. The crowd could
certainly be understood to include the reader himself, since he reads the poem to
explore her dark impulses. The crowd views Lady Lazarus as an object, and therefore
does not recognize her as a human being. It is also reflected through multiple

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references to body parts separated from the whole. From this interpretation, Lady
Lazarus's suicide then becomes "an assertion of wholeness, an act of self-definition,
and a last desperate act of contempt toward the peanut-crunching crowd”. The only
way she can keep herself intact is to destroy herself, and she does this rather than be
turned into commodities. Though "Herr Doctor" will examine her remains for
commodities, she will not have been defeated because of her final act. It shows how
men treat women and the feeling of anger and frustration in a women when looked as
an insignificant object. For a very long time, women have been seen as somewhat
insignificant and object of flesh and bone rather than a soul that needs to be treated
with respect. Times are changing and people are realizing and speaking out for gender
equality more nowadays than they used to. This is a good sign that we are on the
dawn of a new era where men and women are treated equally as opposed to a time
where this was a society dominated by the male figure.

Even though this poem has a very dark theme to it, but there are certain instance
where the persona shows some positive signs, such as hope and will power. The 7 th
stanza with the lines ’And I a smiling woman. I am only thirty’ shows that the persona
has not given up even though she is being continuously oppressed. It shows us that
she has the will power to push through all these hardships even if it meant that she
has to go through the same cycle again and again. Another line which clearly shows
the will power and persistence of the persona is in the last stanza which goes like this:

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

And I eat men like air.

This shows that no matter how much hardships she endures, how much she is
oppressed, she will keep fighting till the end. The poem finishes off with a bit of a
positive touch even though the tone is aggressive and bordering violence.

Overall, this was a very thought provoking poem which will leave you wondering all
the things that you’ve done, be it as a male or female and your part in regulating or
inhibiting gender biasness and oppression.

EDU 5277 | LADY LAZARUS: AN INSIGHT