The imagery of rebirth in the “Lady Lazarus”

(Designed by FireduSoleil)

          When I first read this poem, I think this is a gloomy and cruel poem which is about Nazi and suicide. The Sylvia Plath’s diction makes me feel absolutely terrified. However, after I read this poem carefully, I see the lights, hopes, and the imagery of rebirth. Therefore, I choose this poem as my topic of final paper because I am extremely curious about this contradiction. I find the imagery of rebirth in this poem by understanding and analyzing Sylvia Plath’s diction.

I divide the process of rebirth into four stages. At the first stage, several words such as “lampshade” (line5), “linen” (line9), and “napkin” (line10) connote that she is material. These three materials have a common that they are cloth. I think the reason why she is material is that materials neither birth nor die. Her mind is dead like materials which have no feeling.

At the second stage, she has the flesh such as “The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth” (line13), “hands” (line31), “knees” (line32), “skin and bone” (line33), and “hair” (line64). The flesh is described in many stanzas in this poem. Her flesh is tortured by some hardships and she is like the strip tease who is mocked by the peanut-crunching crowd.

At the third stage, and then, she becomes objects such as “ash” (line73), “A cake of soup” (line76), “A wedding ring” (line77), and “A gold filling” (line78). The objects are more substantial and complete than materials. After suffering from the miseries, she becomes strong metals which are hardly destroyed. Strangely, becoming stronger things is actually a prelude to be reborn.

At the fourth stage, finally, she is reborn and become a demon with red hair. In many mythologies, red has always been the symbolic color of phoenix. The mythological reference to the phoenix seems to symbol the rebirth; in Egyptian mythology, the phoenix ignites at the end of its lifespan and a newer, younger phoenix rises from the ashes.

She experiences sufferings, becomes stranger and stranger, and then is born again. This is not a straight but a changeable process. Actually, the author, Sylvia Plath, only committed suicide once. But in this poem, she commits suicide three times. First time, she says: “It was an accident” (line36). Second time, she really wants to die and never come back at all. It is worth noting that she commits suicide again. This time she drives to rush to an old airport. She tells her friend she just wants to know the results of this behavior; she does not really want to die. Maybe she is eager to gain strength and rebirth by being close to death.

On the other hand, after I search for the meaning of “Lazarus” in the title, I find “Lazarus” has two meaning. One is a symbol of rebirth. The story of Lazarus is found in the Bible in the fourth gospel, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. The other is the leprous baggers or poor people. This kind of people is usually tortured. Some of them want to die; some of them get through those suffering, take efforts to live, and then their spirit will be detached. Besides, I find other biblical allusions in this poem except Lazarus I have mentioned. Take “Herr God, Herr Lucifer” (line79) for exam. After we die, we will see the God in the heaven or the Lucifer in the inferno. But in this poem, she rise out of ash; she is not controlled by the God or Lucifer any more. She goes beyond all of this because she is reborn.

In conclusion, through analyzing Plath’s diction, I find Plath’s poems are not exclusively bleak. This is an opinion which Doris Edir favours in Thirteen Ways of Looking at Lady Lazarus:

"[Plath’s] poems enact a process of transformation from a static, trancelike, deathly state into a metamorphosis ... a descent into darkness is followed by an ascent into light"

          Indeed, in "Lady Lazarus" the “I” speaker’s fascination with death is repeatedly accompanied by a recurring theme of rebirth.

圖片來源：
http://firedusoleil.deviantart.com/art/Lady-Lazarus-by-Sylvia-Plath-55350292