Lady Lazarus

'A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen," (lines 4-6). Sylvia Plath's poem "Lady Lazarus" is pervaded by chilling imagery evoking Nazi concentration camps and the decay of human flesh. Yet the tone of "Lady Lazarus" is more sarcastic than sad, more angry than fearful. Plath's poem describes a third failed suicide attempt: the poem begins "I have done it again. / One year in every ten / I manage it," (lines 1-3). However, far from being glad that the doctors have rescued the poet from her demise, the narrator despises "Herr Doktor" for interfering in the "art" of dying, an "art" she performs "exceptionally well," (lines 44; 45). The narrator acknowledges her preoccupation with death, and admits freely her determination to persist in her suicide attempts:...
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