Azkaa Zaman

“Herr Doktor, Herr Enemy”; Plath and Her Use of War Imagery
Sylvia Plath has been known to use many different images and allusions in her poems. These images and allusions relate to specific events that have occurred in Plath’s life and have affected her in a negative way. One of the most prevalent images used throughout her poetry is war imagery. In “Daddy and Lady Lazarus”, images of war demonstrate Plath’s pain in her marriage, coping with her father’s death, and her feelings of societal rejection.
Plath directly represents the struggles she had in her marriage with Ted Hughes through war imagery. This can be seen in her poem “Daddy”, which is her general perception of her father and his death. This also relates to her marriage when she says “I made a model of you/ A man in black with a Meinkampf look” (“Daddy” 64-65). “Meinkampf” directly refers to Adolf Hitler and the book that her wrote in prison before he became dictator of Germany. “A man in black” would refer to a groom, who in this case was Ted Hughes, and the black would be all the torturous crimes committed in WWII. The fact that Plath was trying to replace her father shows that she did want another man in her life to love her, but in this case, he turned out to be terrible. Another direct attack she makes toward marriage is seen in “Lady Lazarus”, when she says “A cake of soap, /A wedding ring, / A gold filling” (“Lazarus” 79-81). These images relate back to the ill treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust. During this time, they were experimented on and sometimes their skin was used to make soap and candles as well as fertilizer. Anything of value was stripped from them, like their golden wedding rings and teeth, and it was melted down and used where gold was needed. This criticizes marriage by comparing this bond as having the same value as to those items taken from the Jews and thrown by the Nazis. Direct comparisons to war help the reader create a sense of the kind of struggle Plath went through in her marriage.
Another way theses war images are used are through portraying the pain that Plath felt with the death if her father. It is clear that was very upset with his leaving her alone and she is also angry that he did not seek the help for his diabetes. He knew he had it, but he was in denial and later on, he needed surgery. The surgery left him with gangrene in his foot, which eventually caused him to die. Her anger is seen in “Daddy” when she says “I thought every German was you…chuffing me off like a Jew. / A Jew to Dachua, Auschwitz, Belson. / I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (“Daddy” 29-35). This shows how she feels her father has treated her by abandoning her, and she blames him for not preventing his death when he could have. Plath also compares her father to a Nazi because of the severity of what he did to her by dying, and so she is the Jew being mistreated. More of her anger is seen in “Lady Lazarus” when she says “Ash. Ash--- / You poke and stir / Flesh, bone, there is nothing there---” (“Lazarus” 76-78). This statement makes a comparison to the remains of the Jews after the war, and what little significance they had to the Germans. In this particular part of the poem, she is saying that her father left her as if she was unimportant, just like the Jews in WWII. From these images, Plath’s true feelings about her father’s death are revealed.
The final use of these images is directly reflecting on Plath’s life and her feeling as an outcast in society. She lead a very difficult life which she tried to end at least twice, and it is clear that she felt different from everyone else because of all the criticisms she makes. In “Daddy”, Plath represents her feelings of trouble when she states “Every woman adores a fascist, / the boot in the face, / the brute-heart of a brute like you” (“Daddy” 48-50). She seems to feel that everything in her life has gone wrong, like women who adore fascist leaders without really knowing what they stand for. The fascist is a direct war image, and it shows her feeling of solidarity. The war images also indicate her feelings about her own attempted suicides and how she did not want to be saved. Plath says “So, so Herr Docktor, / So, Herr enemy”…Herr God, Herr Lucifer/ Beware. / Beware” (“Lazarus” 68-84). The “Herr” part of this stanza is a German word, and that represents WWII. She says that her savior (the doctors) are her enemies because she does not want to live, yet they keep forcing her back to life and into all this unwanted pain. This also ties in to the basic theme of “Lady Lazarus”, which is that Lazarus might not actually have wanted Jesus to save him. This is the message Plath portrays, that the times she attempted suicide, she almost died and she did not want to be brought back to life either, and that enrages her.
Imagery usage in Plath’s poems is abundant, and without it, she might not be known and appreciated as well as she is today. War images specifically relate events in her life, like her marriage, the death of father, and her suicide attempts. The comparisons made to war, no matter how harsh or exaggerated they may seem, do have an important purpose. They place an emphasis on Plath’s feelings and show the reader that these important events are like the important wars that occurred in history, leaving a large impact on her life forever.