Kim Procida

Death in Sylvia Plath's Poetry: An Art
“Dying/ is an art” (Lazarus 43). Sylvia Plath seems to find death a beautiful and wondrous thing. This is why Plath includes so many death images in her own artwork: her poetry. Plath uses her death imagery in “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” to give her readers some insight into her own life and show that she is content with ending it now.
Due to Plath's dark past, her death images tend to be autobiographical. Through Plath's short life, she made a series of suicide attempts. “Lady Lazarus” highlights these attempts and her potential third, which was later successful, at the time. She tells the readers that “the first time it happened [she] was ten./ It was an accident./ The second time [she] meant/ to last it out and not come back at all” (Lazarus 35-38). Plath goes on further to give more detail about these events in “Daddy.” She reflects on how “[she] was ten when they buried [her father]./ At twenty [she] tied to die” (Daddy 57-58). Now, not only does she let the readers know about her father's death but implies that it may have influenced her own suicide attempts. In these two poems, Plath gives a somewhat detailed account of what her suicide attempts were like in hopes that her readers will be able to understand what it felt like and what she was going through.
It is not very common that writers will try to seek permission from their readers for any action, especially a violent one. However, Plath does try to convince her readers that her suicide is acceptable. In Lady Lazarus, Plath writes that “soon, soon the flesh/ the grave cave ate will be/ at home on [her]” (Lazarus 16-18). Here, she is attempting to tell the reader that she is much more comfortable in dead flesh than living flesh. She would be much happier dead since to her, the grave is her true home. She even tells th reader she commits suicide “exceptionally well./ ... you could say [she had] a call” ( Lazarus 45-48). She is arguing that if she has a special skill and a special need to do something, then she should be able to just as someone with any other exception ability is allowed to act upon it. In “Daddy,” Plath tries to use the reader's emotions to get their approval of her suicide by brining her father into the equation. She tells them that “at twenty [she] tried to die/ and get back, back, back to [her father]./ [She] thought even the bones would do” (Daddy 50-60). Plath is just a little girl who wants to see her daddy again and she should have the right to do that. After all, everybody wishes that they could be together with a loved one after death, even if it can only be through bones. Plath hopes that her readers will understand that she would take the only means possible of seeing her father again and finally feeling at home: death.
Through her use of death imagery, Plath makes her poems so much more personal about herself but also to her readers. She reveals a very intimate side of herself that allows the reader to get inside of her head in hopes that maybe they will be able to understand her deepest, darkest thoughts and her need for death throughout her entire life.

Word Count: 565