Sylvia Plath’s poem “Lady Lazarus” details Plath’s unwanted resurrections from death. Her intentional audience is her enemies, the doctors, who have thwarted her attempts of suicide and brought her back to the life which she wishes to escape. Her real audience is herself; she is talking to herself, her real enemy. Her persona in this poem is of someone who has gone mad from unsuccessful attempts of suicide. Sylvia Plath shows how she views herself subconsciously through comparisons and irony in her poem “Lady Lazarus”.
Plath uses many comparisons of herself to monsters or things to be feared; not of her outward appearance, but of what cannot be seen or not easily seen. The first example of this comes early in the poem, right after she states her problem of coming back to life. Lines 4 through 9 describe what she thinks of herself with a metaphor of what the Germans had done to Jews during the Holocaust. On the outside, the things are beautiful; Plath’s syntax describes them as “bright” and “fine”. Knowing the history of these things will give them a whole new meaning though. Plath uses this to “terrify” her enemies when in reality she is calling herself an object made out of human body parts, something no longer alive. The lines 13 through 18 further portray her self- image. They describe a zombie, something that is dead inside but forced to live and walk the Earth. She depicts herself this way right after line 12, “Do I terrify?-,“ to further show that her persona is something to be afraid of to her enemies. In lines 26 through 34, she makes herself a freak show, something people watch for amusement and amazement. She sees herself as a beast, a monster, a freak, and she wants others to as well.
Plath later uses a dark form of irony to make fun of herself and her failed attempts of suicide. She describes “dying” as “an art” and something, “like everything else,” she does “exceptionally well.” Plath’s last two attempts have failed though, she has not and, from she thinks, cannot die. She is exceptionally bad at dying, just “like everything else.” Plath’s views of her existential situations have not been up to par with what she thinks to be successful. In line 50, she describes dying as “easy enough to do”, but going back on to her not being able to do it, Plath is calling herself useless and unable to do simple tasks that everybody else is able to perform.
Plath’s combination of seeing herself as a monster and not being able to do things that everybody else seems to be able to do gives her poem a depressing tone despite her attempts at having a terrifying and threatening tone. This tone is what holds up the mirror to her image in the poem to herself. Her mimesis of what she thinks of herself was in all actuality a cry for help, help from her feelings of dying. The way she wants help from this problem can be found in stopping the help that doctors and people who bring her back to life give her. Plath eventually got what she wanted when her next suicide attempt was successful.