Lady Lazarus

Death is something that at some point will come to each of us and has been explored in many forms of literature. “The Raven” and “Incident in a Rose Garden” are two poems that explore common beliefs and misconceptions about death. Though both poems differ in setting, tone, and mood there are surprising similarities in the literary tools they use and in the messages they attempt to convey. The setting and mood establish the tone and feel of a poem. In “The Raven” we are launched into a bleak and dreary winters night where a depressed narrator pines for his dead girlfriend.

As one of the most frequently used themes, death has been portrayed and understood differently throughout modern history as well as by poets Christina Rossetti and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “Remember” and the “Cross of Snow.” It appears in literature as the preeminent dilemma, one that is often met by emotions such as grief, hopefulness, depression, and one that can encompass the entire essence of any writing piece. However, despite Rossetti’s “Remember” and Longfellow’s “Cross of Snow” employing death as a universal similarity, the tones, narratives, and syntaxes of the poems help create two entire different images of what the works are about in the readers’ minds.

In 1963 on a cold winter day of February 11th, Sylvia Plath ended her life. She had plugged up her kitchen, sealing up the cracks in doors and windows before she was found with her head inside of her gas oven inhaling the dangerous fumes. She was only thirty years old, a young woman with two small children and an estranged ex-husband. A tragic detail of her life is that this is the second time she had tried to commit suicide. Plagued with mental illness her whole life, which is evident within her poetry. She would write gripping, honest portrayals of mental illnesses. Especially within Ariel, the last poetry book she wrote, right before she took her life. Although it’s hard to find a proper diagnosis for Sylvia Plath, it is almost definite that she at least had clinical depression with her numerous suicide attempts and stays in mental hospitals undergoing electroshock therapy. Sylvia Plath is now famously known for her writing and the more tragic parts of her life. Such as the separation from her husband, Ted Hughes, mental illness, etc… Plath may not have intended for her life and art to become inspiration to many people but that has become the end result. Sylvia Plath writing shows symptoms of her suicidal thoughts. To study specific moments in Sylvia Plath’s life, it can be connected to certain writing’s of her’s, such as “Daddy”, The Bell Jar, and “Lady Lazarus”.

In her poem, “Lady Lazarus,” Sylvia Plath uses dark imagery, disturbing diction, and allusions to shameful historical happenings to create a unique and morbid tone that reflects the necessity of life and death. Although the imagery and diction and allusions are all dark and dreary, it seems that the speaker’s attitude towards death is positive. The speaker longs for death, and despises the fact the she is continually raised up out of it.

Phoenix, a myth from the egyptians that Bradbury used as one of his allusions in his writing. It is called the bird of the sun, which has no young but is able to live on forever. This bird lives for about 500 years until it starts to become very weak and has to fly back to the area where it became immortal. When this bird flies back and faces the sun, once again, it burst into flames and turns to ash. From the gray ashes a bird rises, same as the bird before but refreshed. Bradbury used this in his book to describe what is going to happen to one of the cities. The main character, Montag, was a fireman before he met this girl ,Clarisse, and she made him think and ask the question why. This was what the government was trying to prevent people from doing. Soon Montag does rebell and commits murder. While wanted for his crimes, Montag ran to the railroad tracks where he stumbled upon some fellow people who were called the book people. As they set off together they see a

In “Myth,” by Natalie Trethewey, intense feelings of a heavy conscience are brought to light after the death of someone close. The speaker disguises her own reflection on the experience in the form of a confession to the deceased. The poem creates a hauntingly beautiful tone to reveal the battle of guilt, denial, and acceptance of the speaker using a unique format. Natalie Trethewey uses allusion, metaphors, and palindromic structure to display themes of denial and acceptance.

In Mary Oliver’s poem “The Black Snake,” the narrator contemplates the cycle of life with the unpredictability of death. Mary Oliver’s work is “known for its natural themes and a continual affirmation of nature as a place of mystery and spirituality that holds the power to teach humans how to value one’s life and one’s place” (Riley). In the poem, The Black Snake, the narrator witnesses a black snake hit by a truck and killed on a road one morning. Feeling sympathy for the snake, the narrator stops, and removes the dead snake from the road. Noting the snake’s beauty, the narrator carries it from the road to some nearby bushes. Continuing to drive, the narrator reflects on how the abruptness of death ultimately revealed how the

Sylvia Plath cannot bear the truth and begins to cry; she constantly wants something else to make her feel good about herself, she longs to be young. “I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. She goes back to the lake for answers every morning and the lake is pleased to see her. The poem ends by the lake saying “In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.” This shows Sylvia Plath’s dislike of how old she looks. Sylvia Plath has been looking in this mirror every day for a long period of time, and she is realizing that she is getting older and she cannot do anything about it.

    The Ariel-period poems of Sylvia Plath demonstrate her desire for rebirth, to escape the body that was "drummed into use" by men and society. I will illustrate the different types of rebirth with examples from the Ariel poems, including "Lady Lazarus," "Fever 103," "Getting There," and "Cut."

In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” the theme is that it is necessary to move on from some of life’s events in order to enjoy what is ahead. The theme in Louise Glück’s “Gretel in Darkness” is that a rescue from harm doesn’t always mean the effects from it ceases to linger in life. The themes in the poems by Dickinson and Glück are developed through the speakers’ tones, imagery, and symbolism.

Introduction: Conflicting perspectives are different points of view expressed and influenced by ones context and values. “Birthday Letters” by Ted Hughes is an anthology of poems challenging the accusation that he was responsible for his wife, Sylvia Plath’s death. The three poems The Minotaur, Your Paris, and Red are an insight into Hughes justification of the death of Plath using a very subjective and emotive poetic form. The poems possess many deliberate techniques such as extended metaphors, connotations, diction and juxtaposition to encourage the audience to accept his argument that he was not the one to blame for this world renown tragedy. The poem Daddy by Sylvia Plath also displays conflicting perspectives of the

“Out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air.” Like Lazarus, she is ready to rise from the dead after being thrown in the fire to burn by the Nazis. Unlike Lazarus though, she did not use the help from God to bring herself back from the dead, but she accomplished it by herself, which pushes the poem from being narrated in a helpless tone, to her having a sense and tone of power. Once again, Lady Lazarus is ready to rise from the dead. This time, she is full of power that is fueled by the flames she was burnt

Sylvia Plath’s life was one of a troubled woman. Her lack of sanity was deeply reflected in her works of writing. Her mental state was very much affected by her life experiences such as her feelings of betrayal towards her father and her instable marriage to Ted Hughes. Plath’s poetry, was a way to explore her mental anguish and share her fixation with death, due to her deathly depression. Despite Sylvia Plath’s crippling life, her poetry was constructed in such an artistic manner in which it touched the lives of many

How Sylvia Plath's Life is Reflected in the Poems Daddy, Morning Song, and Lady Lazarus

Some of the dark negative emotions Sylvia Plath shares in this poem can make anyone have sympathy on her feelings. Especially, when she writes,