Holocaust Imagery in Sylvia Plath Poetry
Throughout many of Sylvia Plath’s poems holocaust imagery is used to convey different themes. Plath uses holocaust imagery in the poems “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” to express her suffering, her feelings towards her father, and her sense of entrapment. The use of holocaust imagery in Sylvia Plath’s poetry is one of the factors that make her poems so great.
One of Plath’s most common uses of holocaust imagery is to show her suffering. She uses the Jews suffering during the holocaust as an analogy for her own plight. For example in her poem “Lady Lazarus” Plath writes, “My Skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade” (4-5). This is a reference to Nazi lampshades which were supposedly made from the skin of murdered Jews. Plath compares her own suffering to being skinned alive and used as a lampshade.
Plath also uses holocaust imagery to express her feelings towards her father. In the poem “Daddy” Plath compares herself to a Jew and her father to a Nazi German, by saying “I think I may well be a Jew” (35), and “ I thought every German was you” ( 29). Plath uses holocaust imagery to show how tortured she felt by her father.
A third and final way that Plath uses holocaust imagery is to show her sense of entrapment. The holocaust imagery in “Daddy” is used extensively to express Sylvia’s belief that she is trapped and powerless, with no control over her own life. One example of this is on line 26 of “Daddy” “I’m Stuck in a Barbwire Snare,” This is a good metaphor about how Sylvia felt about her life. Plath also wrote, “An engine / chuffing me off like a Jew” (”Daddy” 31-32). Plath felt like she was being forced to conform to what society wanted her to be, and that she had no choice in the matter, like a Jew being chuffed off to Auschwitz.
Using holocaust imagery was a very powerful way for Plath to convey what she felt. She used holocaust imagery as a form of hyperbole, to show just how important certain issues were to her. The use of holocaust imagery in Plath’s poem greatly enhances the readers understanding of how Plath felt when she wrote her poetry.
About Me
- IB English 1
- Please upload your essay as a blog entry. Use your name as the posting title, and include your essay title, but not the rest of the heading. Comment on three essays: 1. Give one complement, preferably using words from the rubric. 2. Give three suggestions, quoting a specific line that you would change and showing how you'd change it. No one essay should receive more than 3 comments, to ensure that everyone gets feedback. Have fun! Mrs. Poulsen
3 comments:
1) It was clear to me that you had a solid understanding of the text, and gave good examples of Holocaust imagery and some good connections.
2)
a) [The use of holocaust imagery in Sylvia Plath’s poetry is one of the factors that make her poems so great.] The thesis is very vague and does not fit with what you are saying in your body paragraphs. I strongly suggest that you look back at the half-sheet prompt that Mrs. Poulsen handed us to give you a better idea of what she wants the thesis to look like.
b) I also feel that your ideas can be a little bit more developed, especially in the paragraph when you are talking about how Plath uses holocaust imagery to express her feelings towards her father. [Plath uses holocaust imagery to show how tortured she felt by her father.] Here you just state an idea. Here there is no example and no evidence so I suggest that you find an example and go from there.
c) There is a slight problem in this particular sentence in your conclusion. [She used holocaust imagery as a form of hyperbole, to show just how important certain issues were to her.] In your body paragraphs there was nothing said imagery being in some form of a hyperbole. You should go back into your body paragraphs add a section of how some issues were important to her using examples of hyperboles used in the text.
Hope this helps Niko
-Rohan Shah
1) Your supporting references were appropriately integrated into the body of the response.
2) A- Your title needs to have the two part composition that Mrs. Poulsen wants. So before you put this "Holocaust Imagery in Sylvia Plath Poetry", you should come up with a creative part for your title, put a colon, and then your original title.
B- Your first sentence is lacking the interesting, but short hook that Mrs. Poulsen wants the essays to begin with. "Throughout many of Sylvia Plath’s poems holocaust imagery is used to convey different themes." The sentence pasted above can be your second sentence, after you open with a hook, such as a quote from one of the poems you are discussing.
C- Your introductory paragraph should be more developed, which will help your lacking word count. Perhaps you can elaborate on Silvia Plath as a poet or explain why you think she chose Holocaust imagery to express the themes that you mention. Also you should be consistent in capitalizing the word "Holocaust"
Shahrnaz Z.
Drew Cylinder
1. I would say that you have a good understanding of the topic, but that is what everyone else seems to say. Anyhow, I thorough enjoyed your second paragraph, even though it was a tad bit gruesome.
2. a. I would put your thesis at the end of the 1st paragraph. I am not sure if you used the word entrapment correctly, but I could be wrong. You could put the sentence “The use of holocaust imagery in Sylvia Plath’s poetry…” in the conclusion.
b. The two sentences: “One of Plath’s most common uses of holocaust imagery is to show her suffering. She uses the Jews suffering during the holocaust as an analogy for her own plight.” are a bit repetitive, I would just choose just one of them.
c. I found the sentence: “Plath uses holocaust imagery to show how tortured she felt by her father” rather odd. You could say “Plath uses holocaust imagery to show that she felt like she was being tortured by her father” or something similar to that.
d. You might want to discuss what impact holocaust imagery has on the reader and if it was too excessive or over done.
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