In "Lady Lazarus," Sylvia Plath transmutes domestic images into the macabre as she glorifies the narrator's self-determined encounters with death: "A sort of walking miracle, my skin/ Bright as a Nazi lampshade,/ My right foot/ A paperweight,/ My face a featureless, fine/ Jew linen." Plath transforms victim into heroine but not without sacrificing believability. Suicide is not a heroic act. She admits that it's not even particularly hard to do: "Dying/ Is an art, like everything else./ I do it exceptionally well." Her comparison of herself with the Holocaust victims is an attempt to glamorize her suffering, but it is an attempt that fails, because her sufferings are all self-inflicted: "I do it so it feels like hell./ I do it so it feels real./ I guess you could say I've a call." .
Furthermore, by making analogy between her suffering and the Holocaust victims' suffering, she loses the reader's empathy. There is something vaguely obscene in drawing parallels between the Jews who lost their lives by no fault of their own and her attempts at suicide. She cannot know what it is like to have your body turned to "Ash, ash--/ You poke and stir./ Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--/ A cake of soap,/ A wedding ring,/ A gold filling." .
Heroism is defined in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition as "heroic conduct especially as exhibited in fulfilling a high purpose or attaining a noble end. The deliberate extinquishing of a life cannot be termed an act of heroism. Her hallucinatory imagery overblows her problem and creates a mythical gravity without foundation. She is not the phoenix rising from the flames but a scared individual running from her plight. .
Analysis of "Daddy" written by Sylvia Plath Sylvia, born of Otto and Aurelia Plath on October 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. Warren, Sylvia's brother was born April 1935, concidently around this time Otto Plath's health took a serious turn. ... Otto Plath's death had a major influence on Sylvia's life and the way she lived it, as shown in the poem "Daddy". Sylvia Plath's at the age of 8, experienced the lost of her father. ... Sylvia Plath, refers to her father as a Panzer-man and Nazi. ...
Reading Sylvia Plaths poems and knowing little about her life, a psychological aspect is obvious. ... Sylvia Plath's writing always had a way to make the reader understand how she was feeling about trials in her life; Plath pulled her readers in her world. . Sylvia Plath's poem "Metaphors" concentrates on the psychology of pregnant women, and the apprehension Plath had during this time in her life. ... Sylvia feels that she is sheltering something, but has to think deeply about sheltering this object. ... Sylvia Plath and the elements she chose to describe a pregnancy gave the fe...
SYLVIA PLATH : THE APPLICANT Sylvia Plath's Poem "The Applicant", explores many issues, in particular it looks at the ideas of feminism and the role of women in a marriage. ... Silvia Plath has used many poetic methods to help propel the concerns of her poem. ... The repetition of words and sentences throughout the poem work well to enforce the concerns of Sylvia Plath, but they also tend to confuse the meaning. ... Sylvia Plath has used this approach as a way to convey her concerns without shocking the readers with the harshness of what she is actually trying to say. ... In conclu...
Sylvia Plath, a complex poet, a complex mind. The life of Sylvia Plath began on October 27, 1932 and was abruptly ended on February 11, 1963. ... The poetry of Sylvia Plath contains various themes that stem from the author's mind. ... In addition to death, the next theme that topples out of Sylvia Plath's mind is conflict. ... Sylvia Plath is most definitely not exempt from this stereotype. ...
Sylvia Plath What was it that drove Sylvia Plath to suicide? What encourages a poet such as Sylvia Plath to produce such intense pieces of writing? ... Many poets in the past have produced such works, but none have been as striking as those of Sylvia Plath's. ... Many of Plath's poems have made reference to her past. ... Sylvia Plath had it all. ...
Daddy Sylvia Plath 1932-1963 Sylvia Plath wrote "Daddy" just four months before her death by suicide in February 1963. ... In February 1963, Sylvia Plath chose death over life. ... Works Cited Howe, Irving: The Plath Celebration: A Partial Dissent. ... New York, Chelsea House Publishers, 1989 Kehoe, John: Young, Talented, and Doomed: The Life of Sylvia Plath. ... Revising Life: Sylvia Plath's Ariel Poems. ...
In the poem "Mirror"," Sylvia Plath uses strong metaphors and objects as things reflected in a mirror. ... Plath stated, "I am silver and exact"." ... Plath says, "Now I am a lake... Plath uses strong metaphors of nature and objects as people. ... "(16) Sylvia Plath's youth had passed and she feels the effects of age upon her. ...
Sylvia Plath was a great American poet gaining her fame and recognition in the twentieth century, after her death. ... It is in fact that one of Plath's central themes in poetry is women being haunted by the male domineering nature. ... Sylvia Plath uses images of the holocaust and Jews to identify herself, and you can see how she associates the Nazi and the Germans as the powerful/authoritative male figures that replace her father. ... That's why in the movie "Sylvia", Plath's mother tells Ted that Sylvia loves him because she fears him, "I think you've frighten her, that&...
The American woman, Sylvia Plath, is one of the well-known poets who used a lot of the theme of death in her literary works. ... Before entering Smith College in Massachusetts in 1950, she had already written over four hundred poems ("Sylvia Plath"). ... They got married in 1956 and had a turbulent relationship ("Sylvia Plath"). ... As stated above, the life of Sylvia Plath definitely affected her writing and the way she wrote poetry. ... In conclusion, many of Sylvia Plath's poems have been affected by her past and what she has been through. ...