An examination of Sylvia Plath’s poem, Lady Lazarus.
Suicide and death are the images that Sylvia Plath brings to us with her poem, ?Lady Lazarus.? This paper shows how the poem is an account of the poet?s encounters with suicide, which have not been entirely successful. The poem echoes a lament of being rescued from the clutches of death like the Biblical character, Lazarus.
In an interesting perspective, the narrator views dying as an art and therefore paints herself as a work in progress because she has not achieved her goal. Additionally, the narrator views dying as an art. This is obvious when she says, Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well (43-45). In many ways, death is the only process by which she can escape the power that others seem to have over her. We come to realize that her doctor is her enemy because he has saved her from herself and, as a result, from her art.