Brandi Browning

The imagery of Body Parts in Sylvia Plath’s poetry: You Can Only Control Yourself
“The first time it happened I was ten. It was an accident. The second time I meant it to last and not come back at all” (“Lazarus” 35-38). The poem “Lady Lazarus” is a poem Sylvia Plath writes that discusses her suicide attempts and why she does it. The poem “Stings” Sylvia Plath writes and speaks of bees and how they live and also when they would sting somebody or something and die, it is a way of honor. In “Lady Lazarus” and “Stings”, Sylvia Plath uses images of body parts to show the dangers and pain that she has gone through in her life and her struggle of life.
In both poems, there are similarities of using the imagery of body parts. “A sort of walking miracle, my skin” (“Lazarus” 4). Plath expresses how she believes herself to be a walking miracle because of the two attempts that she made of suicide. Her skin, her body just won’t give up on her, so she calls herself a walking miracle. “Blew dew from dangerous skin. Will they hate me, these women who only scurry (“Stings” 27-29). The lines in this poem show how Plath wonders if women will hate her because of the fact that she is rebelling against men and societal ways telling society that she doesn’t have to follow a certain way. Do they think of her skin as dangerous because of her attempts of suicide? Do they think it’s because of her having a horrible marriage? Plath wonders if women will hate her for all of the wrongs that has occurred in her life, as a mother and a wife.
“Lady Lazarus” as said before is about Plath’s suicide attempts. “My face, a featureless, fine Jew linen” (“Lazarus” 5). This line in her poem describes how she feels about herself. They was she portrays herself. “Them unwrap me hand and foot” (“Lazarus” 28). Plath describes how people tried to control her life and how it was hard for her to do what she wanted. Her family would always have to watch over her to make sure she wouldn’t try and kill herself again, her husband, because she had to do what ever he told her to do and society in general because Plath went against some of societal ways and she was ridiculed for some of it. “These are my hands my knees. I may be skin and bone; nevertheless I am the same identical woman” (“Lazarus” 31-34). She describes herself saying that no matter what she goes through and who ever tries to change her, she will always be the same person.
“Stings” is about a bee and its way of life and how it compares with her life and her fathers life. “Bare-handed, I hand the combs” (“Stings” 1). Plath describes helping her father as a little girl, doing what he told her to do, which is what bees do to help out the Queen Bee. “The man in white smiles, bare-handed” (“Stings” 2). She is describing her father at work. “Molding onto his lips like lies” (“Stings” 49). Plath describes that everything her father has said to her were lies because he left her at such a young age. Similar to bees, their life span is short and they don’t know when they will die either.
Weather Plath was able to feel better after writing these poems; we still know how she feels about death, bees and her father. Sylvia Plath uses the images of body parts to show the dangers that she had faced in her life.
Word Count: 594