RAMANANDA CENTENARY COLLEGE

NAME – AMIT MANDAL

ROLL NO – 121351-1815525

SEMESTER – V

REG NO– 014621

SUBJECT– ENGLISH(HONS)

SESSION– 2020-21
 Course Title: Women’s Writing:-
Course Code: BENGCCHT501:-

❖ Attempt a critical appreciation of

Plath’s Lady Lazarus:-

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was an American

poet, novelist and Short-story writer. Born
on Boston, she studied at smith college at
the university of Cambridge. She married
fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956 and they
lived together in the us and then in England.
She was depressed for her adult life and was
treated electroconvulsive therapy(ECT). She
took her own life in 1963.From the title the
readers know that there will be references to
death.
This is poem is about her victory over
death. She admits that she has tried to
die once every decade of her life. She
then begins to explain to readers why she
has tried to die so many times. She uses
imagery to compare her own suffering to
the Jewish people. She compares her
skin to Nazi lampshade.
This is significant because the Nazi
people used the skin of the Jews to make
lampshades. She conveys her pain by
comparing her right foot to a
paperweight. The paperweight conveys
the nature of her emotional pain. She
feels like a face lost in the crowd. Plath
describes her face as a fine Jew linen.
Jew linens were also used to wrap Jesus’
body before he was laid in the tomb.
Plath’s reference to the fine Jew linen
reaffirms that she already feels dead.
When she asks the reader to “peel off the
napkin”, actually she is challenging to
reader to look at her for who she really is.
She doesn’t want that anyone would know
her because if people were to do that, they
would be terrified. people will become
aware that although she is alive but her
soul is dead. she describes herself as having
a prominent nose cavity, eye pits, and teeth.
Plath then reveals that each decade, she
has come very close to death. She
begins to criticize the people around her.
She calls them the “peanut crunching
crowd”. This same view of people is
conveyed when she compares herself to
Lazarus. But this time, she doesn’t
compare herself to the Lazarus who is
dead in the tomb. She compares herself
to the Lazarus that has risen and is
coming out of the tomb.
She is alive but still she wishes she
were in the tomb. She is looking at her
hands, her knees, her flesh, and
realizing the she is still alive, at least
physically. Plath then begins to give the
reader some history on her experiences
with death, explaining that the first time
was an accident. She identifies death as
an art. she feels no purpose in life other
than to die. Plath makes her readers
aware of the source of her
suffering. The use of the German word
“Doktor” refers to the Nazi doctors who
brought the Jewish victims back to
health. Plath then begins to explain why
men are the enemy. she is valuable to
men only as an object, beautiful, but
hard and lifeless. She uses heavy
sarcasm when she says, “do not think I
underestimate your great concern”. She
feels that her death, to the people
around her, would be nothing more than
watching a beautiful piece of jewellery
burn. She continues to blame men, God,
and the Devil, specifically pointing out
that both God and Lucifer (the Devil) are
men. This also reveals that she feels
powerless under men. She refers to the
Doktor, God, and the Devil all as men
who hold some kind of power over her.