Matthew Luszczak

Reductum ad Hitlerum: Nazism in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath.
Everybody hates Nazis, and with good reason. They perpetrated one of the most destructive conflicts in modern history and executed the 20th century’s most infamous act of genocide. Since the scale of the crimes of Fascism is so vast, it is easy to be accused of hyperbole when comparing a person to the Nazis. Care must be exercised to ensure that the comparison is appropriate. Imagery of Nazism in Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” is used to cast Plath as a victim and those who have hurt her as villains. However, due to the emotionally charged nature of the subject, Plath’s imagery is not always successful in convincing the reader that the portrayal is valid.
The primary purpose of the Nazi imagery in “Daddy” is to vilify Otto Plath and Ted Hughes by associating them with Nazism. Imagery is important in forming this association; if Plath’s father is to be a Nazi, he must be described as one. And so in lines 43-44, he is given a “neat mustache / And… Aryan eye, bright blue.” (“Daddy” 43-44). Since Ted is a copy of her father, he is described as “A man in black with an Mienkampf look” (“Daddy” 65)—the image of an SS man. Sylvia states that she is a Jew (“Daddy” 35), and lists the names of death camps (“Daddy” 33), but what happens in those camps is not described. The Nazi imagery tells us they are villains, it does not tell us a plausible reason why.
In “Lady Lazarus” Sylvia’s imagery of Nazism serves less to vilify her tormentors than to demonstrate her grievances. The most notable Nazi imagery is of objects the Nazis extracted form the Jews they killed—Sylvia’s skin is “bright as a Nazi lampshade” (“Lady Lazarus” 5), and after she is burned in a crematorium all that is left is “A cake of soap,/ a wedding ring,/ a gold filling” (“Lady Lazarus” 25-27). All of this seems to indicate that Sylvia feels exploited. The doctors have taken away her ability to die, a crime she equates to that of the Nazis using the fat from Jews to make soap.
In “Daddy” the task of explaining Sylvia’s grievances against her father and her husband is left to the black shoe (“Daddy” 2-5) and vampires (“Daddy” 72-74). These seven lines which could justify casting Otto as a Nazi are pitiful next to the seven stanzas Sylvia uses do the casting. There is less concentration on why Sylvia hates her father, instead the focus is on the fact that she does. She makes accusations but does not show much evidence, and so her credibility falls.
However, she might have salvaged some of her credibility if she had chosen to compare her father to something other than Nazis. However terrible it could be, to compare whatever psychological suffering one person could reasonably inflict on another to the systematic murder of 11 million men, women, and children seems a bit ridiculous. “Daddy” is a good example of how not to bring Nazis into poetry.
“Lady Lazarus,” on the other hand, is a good example of how to reference Nazism without seeming hyperbolic. Nazism is not the only prism through which the reader is allowed to see her doctors; there are also comparisons to a striptease (“Lady Lazarus” 29) and a carnival freak show (“Lady Lazarus” 58-59). In both the doctors are barely mentioned. This serves to take the emphasis off the comparison to Nazism, making it seem less like name-calling and more like observation.
Her credibility is further enhanced when, instead of referencing the entirety of the Holocaust, she instead gives us images of personal suffering. In Stanza 24she provides an image of the crematoriums—“I turn and burn” (“Lady Lazarus” 71). She does not compare herself to Poland, as she does in “Daddy” (“Daddy” 16-21). The comparison seems proportional, and so is accepted.
Care should be exercised when dealing with any emotionally charged subject. In the rush to vilify one’s opponents or exalt one’s allies, it is easy to exaggerate and make a comparison that will not withstand scrutiny. This will only result in the person who made the comparison looking foolish, and, if the comparison involved the death or pain of many people, tactless. Comparisons should always be proportional and to alike situations. If the comparison is not valid, then the person making it will appear to know nothing of either subject.
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