Audrey yang

Sylvia Plath: As a Jew
Sylvia Plath was a prolific poet, who wrote many famous poems like “Ariel”, “Lady Lazarus”, and “Daddy”. Plath used a wide variety of literary terms to describe her poems, such as caesura, enjambment, and imagery. Plath was born on October 27, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and had a very close relationship with her father. He died when she was only eight years old and had left her devastated and depressed. In her poems “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus”, Plath used war imagery such as Nazi and Jews to represent her life and her relationship with her father.
In the poem “Lady Lazarus”, Plath sees herself as a Jew. “My face featureless, fine Jew linen” (“Lazarus” 8-9). It was believed that during WWII, Jews’ skins were taken to make lampshades. Plath compared herself to the Jews by saying that her skin too, is like a Nazi lampshades. “My skin, bright as a Nazi lampshade” (“Lazarus” 4-5). Unlike the Jews though, Plath chose to die. She had attempted suicide three times and was successful on her third attempt. “Dying is an art, like everything else I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real” (“Lazarus” 43-47). Ironically though, the Jews were killed by the doctors, while Plath was saved by the doctors.
In her poem “Daddy”, Plath compares her father to a Nazi. “I have always been scared of you,
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with your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache and your Aryan eye, bright blue” (“Daddy” 40-44). The reasons, why she is comparing her father to a Nazi is because she resent him for leaving her behind in a life where she does not want to live and had tried to commit suicide multiple times to get to him. “I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you” (“Daddy” 57-59). She also compared herself to a Jew. “An engine, an engine, chuffing me off like a Jew. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew” (“Daddy” 32 and 33-34).The reason why she compared herself to the Jews is because like the Nazi killing and hurting the Jews, her daddy was hurting her.
Even though Plath had compared her father to a Jew, she still love him, because they have had a good relationship. “Every woman adores a Fascist, the boot in the face, the brute brute heart of a brute like you” (“Daddy” 48-50). She missed him so much that she even tried to find a replacement for him with her husband. “I made a model of you, a man in black with a Meinkampf look and a love of the rack and screw. And I said I do, I do.” (“Daddy” 64-67). But just like her father, he had caused her pain and this may had been the reason why she decided to let go of her father. “So daddy, I’m finally through. The vampire who said he was you and drank my blood for a year, seven years if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now.” (“Daddy” 65 and 72-75).
In both poems Plath used war imagery to represent herself as a Jews. “My skin, bright as a Nazi lampshade”(“Lazarus” 4-5) and “I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew” (“Daddy” 34-35). She also talks about her suicidal attempt in both poems. “The first time it
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happened I was ten. The second time I meant to last it out and not come back at all” (“Lazarus” 35and 37-38). “At twenty I tried to die and get back, back, back to you” (“Daddy” 58-59). The difference between Plath’s used of war imagery in “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” is that in “Daddy” it was used to represent the pain that she goes through after her father’s death and trying to replace him with her husband. “Lady Lazarus” on the other hand, was used to represent her life and suicidal attempt only.
By just comparing and contrasting these two poems, using war imagery, you can tell that Plath, although is a prolific poet did not live a happy life. The way that she used her cruel and unusual words to explain her life was one of the reasons why her poems are so famous. She also used her poems to explain herself and her life to the world, to an extent that makes it easier for us to understand and questioned her death, making her one of the most famous poets to receive fame after death.








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