Reconsider Sylvia Plath's poem "Lady Lazarus" in light of the theory of the male
gaze. Pick a theme from the list below and write three paragraphs (with topic
sentences/controlling ideas). Use close analysis of literary devices to
substantiate your argument about the themes. Literary devices you might
consider: tone, rhetoric, diction, imagery, historical allusion, biblical allusion,
rhyme (end/internal), verse form, audience/speaker, repetition, metaphor, simile,
analogy, pun, parallelism, irony, symbolism, assonance, consonance, alliteration,
etc. Post your responses by the due dates above on your wikispace page.
Sylvia Plath makes many references to the Holocaust and links to her own life, and one of the
literary devices that she uses to effectively convey the theme of history vs. personal history is the
use of metaphors. She is 2 different personas in the poem; the Nazis and the Jews. This parallels
the strong and the weak sides of her. This can be seen in how she compares her skin with a ‘Nazi
lampshade’. A Nazi lampshade is a lampshade made of Jewish skin. She is perhaps saying that
there is a sick, twisted tyrant that lives in her, in her very skin. Another metaphor, ‘My face a
featureless, fine / Jew linen’ creates a contrast to show that she is a victim in a state of
deterioration and weakness. She feels used, like linen, and overpowered, like a Jew. Thus Plath
effectively conveys the theme of history vs. personal history.
The use of imagery in the third last stanza, ‘A cake of soap, / A wedding ring, / A gold filling’, is
another reference to the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, the Nazis, after killing the Jews, took
the Jews’ valuable possessions and sold them to earn money. Plath probably is saying that she
feels like she is being made into merchandise, like how the Nazis manufactured the Jews’
remains. She feels a lack of power and control in her life, which is probably one of many factors
that contributed to her suicidal state. Hence Plath makes another reference to the Holocaust to
convey her personal suffering.
Another literary device used is repetition, as seen in ‘So, so, Herr Doktor. / So, Herr Enemy.” The
word Herr is German for Sir, or Mr. and is probably another reference to the Germans and the
Holocaust. She probably thinks of the doctor and her enemies as the Nazis who force their will on
others. The doctor forces her to come back to life even though she does not want to. Her
enemies force her to do things that she does not want to and which probably is the source of her
depression. She feels overpowered and used, like the Jews. She might be thinking that the doctor
resurrected her only to receive gratitude and admiration from the public, while her enemies use
her for their own gains. Hence here, we see that there is another link between history and her
personal history.