Lady Lazarus

Plath’s poem continues to navigate the complex tension between hopelessness and empowerment; while the apocalyptic imagery ‘What a trash / To annihilate each decade.’ Captures her delight at resisting male expectations, the metaphor of the ‘strip tease,’ observed by the ‘peanut-crunching crowd’ affirms how she cannot truly escape the male gaze, and the engendered performativity of feminine existence. She recalls past attempts at suicide, and how each time she has been ‘resurrected’ – or, in a more literal sense – denied the opportunity to unshackle herself from male-dominated society. Through her imagery ‘Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well.’ Plath comments on the artifice of society and the corresponding performativity of gender roles, while referencing her personal anguish at the thought of being anything less than exceptional.

Her conceptualisation of society as being performative and voyeuristic is affirmed by ‘It’s the theatrical / Comeback in broad day.’ Plath knows that as a woman, she is endlessly subjected to the male gaze and scrutinised, even in her moments of vulnerability. In the final few stanzas, Plath attempts suicide again as she directly addresses the way in which she is objectified by male society: ‘I am your opus, / I am your valuable, / The pure gold baby.’ She again invokes the memory of the Nazis in ‘Herr God, Herr Lucifer.’ ‘Herr’ is German for ‘Mr.’ and following WW2 became a popular way of invoking the memory of the Nazis. By attaching ‘Herr’ to ‘God’ and ‘Lucifer,’ Plath reduces them to human (and male) forms, stripping them of some of their power. ‘Beware / Beware.’ Is a dramatic threat that culminates with the phoenix imagery ‘Out of the ash / I rise with my red hair / And I eat men like air.’ Plath has been resurrected, and though she remains in the confines of the patriarchy, this time she is seeking revenge. 

Lady Lazarus depicts the culmination of Plath’s internal battle with depression and suicidal thoughts and her desire to achieve self-actualisation. She understands that her feminine identity can never be fully realised so long as the patriarchy suppresses and disembodies her, and so looks to suicide as the ultimate act of resistance and escape.