‘Lady Lazarus’ by Sylvia Plath. Essay

The poem brothel keeper Lazarus gives us an insight into the roiling demeanor of the poet Sylvia Plath. She lost her father at an early age. Supported whole by her mother she went through a very rough childishness. In fact, Sylvia Plath escaped a near fatal accident in her childhood and went on to attempt suicide twice in the following eld of her behavior. In the poem, Plath lets her emotions flow and sheds light on her distress.In this poem, Sylvia Plath uses final solution resourcefulness extensively. The final solution, as is widely known, refers to the inhuman torture and exploitation of the Jews by the Nazis. The first gear mention of the gruesome final solution comes in the form of a similitude between herself and a Nazi lampshade. Unbelievable as it may seem, the Nazis use the skins of the Jews to make lampshades. Plath feels that she has been used in a similar manner. Throughout her life Plath had been in and out of hospital. So much so that she felt identical an o bject on display a mere, inconsequential living function on which the doctors happily carried out various experiments. The Nazis used to take extraneous tout ensemble valuable articles from the Jews, including expensive fabrics wish well linen. Plath refers to her skin as Jew linen, over again indicating that she was used as an object.Plath suffered a nervous breakdown in her childhood. To heal her, doctors had no choice notwithstanding to use shock treatment, subjecting her to unbearable pain in the process. In the poem, Plath uses the word charge which has a pun on it, referring to the brutal pain inflicted on her by the doctors. In this instance, a mate can be drawn to the inhuman torture experienced by the Jews.In the poem, Plath refers to herself as a valuable and a pure gold baby, which is again an example of final solution imagery. It is widely believed that the Nazis were so barbaric that they not only used the Jews to do physical work but also used their bodies to make objects alike(p) soap. Their golden teeth were tweak out and melted to make valuables such as wedding rings. Their corpses were wherefore burnt to erase all trace of their existence. The mention of all this in the poem makes us believe that Sylvia Plath considered herself to be stifled, oppressed and exploited, just like the Jews.Finally, a striking similarity is noticed in the manner in which Plath chose to leftover her life and the methods used to exterminate the Jews. The Jews were killed in gas put up where poisonous gases devoured their internal organs. Plath committed suicide by putting her sharpen inside an oven, and died as a result of gas poisoning. In my trust this was perhaps because she felt herself so alike the Jews that she preferred to end her life in the very same manner.Thus, we can safely conclude that Holocaust imagery forms a significant part of Sylvia Plaths poem Lady Lazarus.b)After critically analyzing the poem, the Holocaust imagery which has bee n used widely, seems fairly stiff in conveying the poets message. It is clear from the poem that Sylvia Plath felt she has been goaded to suicide by society as a whole. Evidently, she believed that life had been also unfair to her.This feeling stems from her childhood, when she lost her father. This horrific incident left a gaping void in her life. A major part of her moral support had been cruelly snatched from her. To add to this, Plath had a pitiable medical record. She make frequent visits to the hospital throughout her life. The excruciating shock treatment she authentic shook her completely. Once Plath got married, her personal life suffered even more. Her husband had been faithless to her, further aggravating her pitiable condition. Overall, Plaths life was depressing to place the least. Plath was consumed by self-pity throughout her life.In this regard, the Holocaust imagery used by Plath is very effective and appropriate. It reminds us of historys most immoral tale of cruelty. This justifies its use to depict Plaths life.However, in other respects, the Holocaust imagery cannot effectively portray Plaths life. An important reason organism that the Jews always had the will to survive. They were members of an affluent community who were stripped off all their possessions by the Nazis. Plath on the other hand had attempted suicide twice. This is a glaring difference between Plaths life and the Holocaust, making it quite a ineffective in conveying her message.Another important difference is that the Holocaust was a planned genocide which involved the death of approximately sise million people. Plaths comparison seems quite irrelevant in this aspect, as she talks about the death of a single person (herself).Finally, mavin of the most important differences is that Plath considered death to be a performance. At the end of the poem, Plath says that she was about to rise like a phoenix, referring to her own death. To her, attaining death was like being resurrected, as she would be freed from her troubled life. Plath believed death to be a means of attaining victory over life. She clearly mentions that when she survived her second suicide attempt, it was a theatrical comeback. In comparison, the Holocaust was only about forcing people into cock-a-hoop up their lives.Thus, in my opinion, taking these factors and many more subtle differences onto consideration, the Holocaust imagery is fairly effective in conveying Plaths message.