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Comment 18 of 28, added on December 6th, 2005 at 5:47 AM.
PLATH's Lady Lazarus is a deed of modern society.Through this poem Plath's
expresses her deep feelings and disgust against the deep rooted stubborn
patriarchal society.In the poem , as mentioned 'nine times to die' and in
her personal life also , Plath is a modern Feminist martyr who expresses
her revolt against this ill fated society. Plath's LADY LAZARUS is actually
a social deed. It is important in the history of Englishliterature for many
causes. It combines the society, politics, economics, as well as personal
grudge against society of a love-lorn, desolated female persona.All these
ideas are rolled into one.Simultaneously, here expresses Plath's another
attitude of fleeting and escapist mentality like the romantics, but at the
end her robust ambition of being resurrected like the mythical Phoenix is
certainly optimistic.
SABUJ SARKAR from India
Comment 17 of 28, added on November 29th, 2005 at 3:36 AM.
what does anyone think about the pronoun "I" as a tool in this poem? i
think it works better than other Plath poems like Moon and the yew tree
because of the "I" but the way she makes her self sound tormented riles me.
she wasnt jewish, but she used that to detatch herself further from her
father Otto, because he was German. to make it that she was as tormented
in a physical sense as people who were tortured in the holocaust must be
justified by her mental state-but the fact that she condemns people
(peanut-crunching crowd) for reading her poems, confuses me-Plath's whole
life was geared towards becoming this amazing writer, to be respected by
everyone.
Heather from United Kingdom
Comment 16 of 28, added on November 14th, 2005 at 10:44 AM.
This is an original piece of art coming straight from the heart of soul.
It's butt obivious that she's depressed and has mastered the art of
comitting suicide but the element thats hidden is here is that she's
standing out against the atrocities of world and instead of revolting
against them, enjoying the perfection she's bringing to her suicidal
tendencies. She's very patient and self centered because it takes her a
complete decade to pile the causes up as an excuse to take her own life.
One could also interpret this poem in regards of the poet being molested or
sexually abused(raped) by the male community time and again which kills a
part of her everytime it happens. But it won't be the correct
interpretation to imagine her being raped at the age of 90(9th encounter, a
decade for each).
tripp from United States
Comment 15 of 28, added on November 1st, 2005 at 10:06 AM.
No, Plath was not Jewish; however, her father was German: Otto Plath, a
rather cold, withdrawn expert on, of all things, bees. He wrote a
relatively respected book on the subject. Because he was never much of a
part of her life, part of her more confessional poetry is the search for
understanding of him and of how she relates to him as his daughter, how he
has shaped her genetically, intellectually, emotionally.
One of the elements of the poem that I have always admired is the symbol of
things being stripped away from the narrator. Perhaps this is why the
skeletal concentration camp survivors become so important in this poem. Her
rebirth, her resurrection, is as a new being, having shed those parts which
she no longer needs. Perhaps what she loses is the power of society--and
men in particular--to intimidate her. The villains of this piece are male,
certainly, but, by the end of the poem, after several deaths, she is able
to say that she now has power, that she eats "men like air." Rebirth, for
the narrator is not the resurrection of the original body, but the birth of
something quite new and more essential, more real than what had died.
Elizabeth from United States
Comment 14 of 28, added on October 5th, 2005 at 12:13 PM.
This is one of the best poems ever written because it really speaks of a
woman's pain, which is nevertheless a political pain, sylvia plath is a
milestone for the women all over the world who are sensitive to their
souls, and women who try to avoid the tropes of patriarchy....i wish people
would stop analyzing sylvia and take a sip from the pure and true emotion
she has to offer because that's all poetry is at the end.....the purest
forms of emotion crystalized in words....
Rubaiyat Hossain from Bangladesh
Comment 13 of 28, added on September 8th, 2005 at 10:08 AM.
I feel that the empathy with Lazarus is because that that story wasn't
really about him. It was about Jesus performing a really impressive
miracle and his family being so excited. Did he want to come back?
She's very bitter about her 'noble' rescuers. She doesn't underestimate
their concern - it's concern for their own heroism. Her attempted deaths
make her an applauded star performer. The also make her a product for them
- like the 'products' of the nazi extermination - skin lampshades, soap,
gold teeth, jewellery. Her suicides are trivialised because they stop
being about her. They're about the doctors and family who save her and
'make her well again' (without actually fixing the real problems). They
can't meet her where she is - so she sees them as merely profiting from her
misery.
Alan from South Africa
Comment 12 of 28, added on August 26th, 2005 at 3:06 AM.
Its a theatrical, just as she says it is. The rush bleeds into her pen and
she is caught again by her wave. what saddens me is that everyone sees her
poetry as grim including her ex husband Ted Hughes, whereas she manages to
touch another vibe for me. its more or less like a farce that stays on too
long or an emotion that is very self expressive. hard to explain it, but at
least i tried! Here's to reading your poems kid. Its a pity you never knew
how much its made a difference!
Tanya from India
Comment 11 of 28, added on June 26th, 2005 at 2:00 AM.
awsome poem, really grabed my attention. But is she Jewish?
Ass Monkey?
p.s is Becky, Vuli and Becky?
if so rock on man!!!
holden (named after catcher in the rye) from Australia
Comment 10 of 28, added on May 26th, 2005 at 6:10 PM.
I absolutely love the nazi and biblical allusion. It is one of the
greatest poems I have ever read. Poems like this chill your spine and
create a horrific yet empowering notion within the reader.
Weston Fillman from United States
Comment 9 of 28, added on April 17th, 2005 at 11:41 PM.
Sylvia Plath has gone to great lengths to craft this poem for maximum
emotional impact. Her choice of contrasting metaphors (The Holocaust, and
religion, both juxtaposed starkly against the "peanut-crunching crowd" of a
show) is immediately unsettling, and each word seems to have been carefully
chosen to strike hard at the reader's nerves and heart.
Rather than approaching it as an autobiographical commentary (or
prediction) on her life, I think it serves better as a "confessional"
snapshot of her emotional and mental state at the time the poem was
written. Death frightens her, it is scary as hell, her close encounters
with it have been full of worms and decay, and she regrets her previous
brushes with it: "What a trash / To annihilate each decade". Yet she's
morbidly compelled by her near-death experiences, to write about it is such
detail, and trivialises her return from death as a kind of show, and not
without some pride: "I do it exceptionally well".
Each experience destroys her, so that the final stanzas deal with people
examining her, and finding nothing human left: "A cake of soap" (fat and
ash left over from burning flesh) "A wedding ring / A gold filling" -
traces of a life lived, a story told, but no life left. In the final
stanza, she warns that she will again get stronger, and phoenix-like ("Out
of the ash / I rise with my red hair"), destroy those around her again.
It's controversial, it's frightening, it's draining... love it or hate it,
it's anything but ordinary. A fantastic poem.
Leonard Low from Australia
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PLATH's Lady Lazarus is a deed of modern society.Through this poem Plath's
expresses her deep feelings and disgust against the deep rooted stubborn
patriarchal society.In the poem , as mentioned 'nine times to die' and in
her personal life also , Plath is a modern Feminist martyr who expresses
her revolt against this ill fated society. Plath's LADY LAZARUS is actually
a social deed. It is important in the history of Englishliterature for many
causes. It combines the society, politics, economics, as well as personal
grudge against society of a love-lorn, desolated female persona.All these
ideas are rolled into one.Simultaneously, here expresses Plath's another
attitude of fleeting and escapist mentality like the romantics, but at the
end her robust ambition of being resurrected like the mythical Phoenix is
certainly optimistic.
SABUJ SARKAR from India