Sylvia Plath and her Lady Lazarus

"I am the those of an infamous suicide, My own blue razor rustling in my throat.

O pardon the one who knocks for pardon at Your gate, father - your hound-bitch, daughter, Friend.

It was my love that did us both to death."

In this passage from Sylvia Plath’s poem,”Electra on Azalea Path,” Sylvia, in a confessional tone, expresses her struggle upon the death of her father, and her own mental health. This article attempts to explore the life of the twentieth century Pulitzer-prize winning poet Sylvia Plath through her poem : Lady Lazarus.

Trigger warning : mention of suicide, death and depression.

Plath used poetry to explore her own states of mind in the most breathtaking perspectives on emotion, nature and resonance. Her first poetry collection, “The Colossus” has been described as “bare but vivid and precise,” by literary critic Al Alvarez.

After “The Colossus”, she published “Bell Jar”, her only novel which follows its heroine, Esther, as she slides into a severe depressive episode, but also includes wickedly funny and shrewd depictions of snobby fashion parties and dates with dull men. Shortly after the publication of “The Bell Jar”, Plath died by suicide at age 30. Two years later, the collection of poems she wrote in a burst of creative energy during the months before her death was published under the title, “Ariel”.

Widely considered her masterpiece, Ariel exemplifies the honesty and imagination Plath harnessed to capture her pain. Both the poems “Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy” are part of this poetry collection.

Sylvia Plath's poem "Lady Lazarus" was published in 1962 in her poetry collection titled "Ariel." "Ariel" is one of Plath's most famous and influential collections. It was published posthumously in 1965, two years after her death, by her husband, Ted Hughes.

The poem is a meditation on the recurring cycle of death and rebirth, both literal and metaphorical. The speaker likens herself to Lazarus, who was raised from the dead by Jesus. This theme is evident in lines like "I have done it again" and "I am your opus, I am your valuable," where the speaker acknowledges her repeated experiences of death and resurrection.

Plath explores the idea of suffering and recovery as an art form. The speaker describes her experience of dying as an art that she performs exceptionally well. She acknowledges her audience and how her pain becomes a spectacle, which can be seen in lines such as "I do it so it feels real" and "Theatrical / Comeback in broad day."

This theme reflects Plath's own experience as a confessional poet who used her art to express her inner turmoil. Exhibiting a non-linear structure, marked by fragmented and disjointed images and ideas, Plath's use of repetition and abrupt shifts in the narrative contributes to this sense of fragmentation.

It is often regarded as a prime example of confessional poetry due to its deeply personal and autobiographical nature. In the poem, Plath openly explores her own struggles with mental illness, suicidal thoughts, and personal trauma, using her own life as the primary source material.

The speaker's candid and unflinching examination of her innermost emotions and experiences blurs the line between the poet and the persona, reflecting the core characteristics of confessional poetry. Plath's willingness to confront her own pain and suffering directly with an unfiltered and confessional tone is emblematic of the confessional poetry movement, which aimed to bring the poet's personal experiences and psychological turmoil to the forefront of their work.

This unflinching language used in both the poems has made Plath an important touchstone for countless other readers and writers who sought to break the silence surrounding issues of trauma, frustration, and mental health issues.

In another poem from the same collection, ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’, she talks about how a young woman feels a sense of grief and abandonment, with the moon alluding to foreboding imagery. She writes : “The moon is no door/ White as a knuckle and terribly upset/ I identify with its nausea/ It meets me in the mirror uninvited, this face beneath my face,/ restless and unwilling. It formulates inside me like a kicking foetus/ and refuses to be ignored. It haunts and threatens like a past trauma.”

In her work ‘The Bell Jar’, she wrote about death :

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grass waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

Plath's domestic dissatisfaction and her husband’s mistreatment of her are constant themes in her later poetry. After her death, he inherited her estate, and has been accused of excluding some of her work from publication.

Despite these possible omissions and her untimely death, what survives is one of the most extraordinary bodies of work by a twentieth century poet. Plath casts her readers as witnesses — not only to the truth of her psychological life, but also to her astounding ability to express what often remains inexpressible