Male oppression (lady lazarus)

“My face a featureless fine/Jew Linen” (self association as a Jew)

“a walking miracle....,a Nazi lampshade”, (series of metaphors, comparison between a jewish victim
in holocaust to struggling against male oppression)

“I turn and burn...,Ash, ash”, (heat imagery refers to Fever 103, symbolic of resurrection using
suicide as a tool)

“Out of the ash/And I eat men like air” (extended metaphor of a phoenix rising from ashes conveying
her strong passion for death to overcome male oppression)

Hughes own perspective of Plath’s self destruction (red)

“Red..., was what you wrapped around you” (colour imagery first established, different opinion of
the colour red compared to Plath)

“When you had your way finally/our room was red” (reestablishment of colour imagery, red room
symbolic of bloodshed and destruction which Plath caused)

“Salvias, that your father names you after” (Plath’s fixated obsession with her father and Salvias, a
hallucinogenic flower)

Relationship with Hughes and Otto (Daddy)

“The old woman that lived in a shoe” (childlike persona, reference to an old childhood nursery
rhyme, Plath’s vulnerability)

“Achoo” (Plath’s repetitive use of child-like language reflects her stunted mindset)

An engine, chuffing me off like a Jew”, (simile, reference to lady lazarus, both contain core concepts
of oppression)

If I killed one man, I’ve killed two” (equal roles that hughes and otto played in undermining her
individuality and freedom)

Hughes Personal insight into Plath’s emotional turmoil (The shot)

“the fury of a high velocity bullet” (extended metaphor, destructive nature of Plath’s obsession with
male figures such as Otto)

“Your Daddy, the god with the smoking gun,” (anachronistic imagery, reference to Daddy and Plath’s
perception of her father as a godly figure)