Phil Stout

Sylvia Plath; Idealizing a Nazi day-dream
Both day-dreaming and idealization are defense mechanisms used by many people to cope with stress and their problems. Plath uses both these mechanisms in her life as can be seen clearly through her poetry. She often uses these two devices in conjunction to greatly overemphasize and exaggerate her problems to make them easier to accept. This over-exaggeration can be clearly seen by her use of holocaust imagery in Daddy and Lady Lazarus to compare her own problems to those faced during the holocaust to make them and herself more important.
Sylvia Plath uses lots of holocaust imagery to exaggerate and emphasize her problems with her deceased father in Daddy. Sylvia compares her father to Nazis throughout the holocaust by using this imagery. She does this to demonize her father and make him out to be the perpetrator of many crimes. However the only crime, which her father is responsible, however was dying at the hands of a disease, which fifty percent of its patients go, undiagnosed. By comparing her father to Nazis this shows that she blames him for dying and is comparing it to the atrocities committed during the holocaust. She then Makes herself out to be a Jew in the middle of the holocaust, as seen in this passage “A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belson/I began to talk like a Jew/I think I may well be a Jew.” she feels like she is being reduced to little more than the Jews at the death camps by her relationship with her father. This Idealization of the Jews is comparing her problems to theirs in an effort to make herself and her problems to be just as bad and important as those during the holocaust. Now by comparing herself to a Jew and her father to a Nazi she puts her father in a great position of power in this day dream of hers. This is seen in the passage “Every woman loves a fascist/The boot in the face the brute/The brute heart of a brute like you.” In this passage she is still in love with her father, the Nazi, however he holds all the power in the relationship by virtue of being a Nazi. This is similar to Plath’s real relationship with her father, because as he is deceased it is a completely one-sided relationship. This power over Plath follows her until her death. Sylvia Plath uses holocaust imagery in daddy to idealize herself and her father into the holocaust to compare, describe, and exaggerate the relationship she has with her father.
Holocaust imagery is used again in Lady Lazarus to idealize the cremated Jews to exaggerate her own suicide attempts and to imagine revenge on those who would drive her to those ends. Silvia compares herself in her suicide attempts to Jews ready for cremation as seen in this passage “I am your valuable/The pure gold baby/That melts to a shriek.” In this she describes herself as someone of great importance who would be cremated wrongly. This is also saying she feels pressured by someone else or the world to commit suicide. By thinking that someone else is forcing her to commit suicide it makes it easier for her to go through with. She also compares herself with the cremated Jews and compares the forces pushing her to commit suicide to an examiner waiting for her death as seen in this passage “Ash, Ash---/You poke and stir/Flesh, bone there is nothing there.” This reflects her belief that she is completely innocent and had nothing to do with her suicide attempts and that it was all from outside influences, an interesting day-dream. Finally she compares the people who pushed her to commit suicide to the devil. “Herr god, Herr Lucifer/Beware, Beware.” She then tells those who she believes pushed her to attempt suicide to beware, as she will make an effigy of them in words. Sylvia path uses holocaust imagery again to idealize the Jews and compare her problem to hers in a fantastical day-dream about herself as Jew of her suicide attempts being forced upon her like the cremation of Jews.
Silvia Plath uses holocaust imagery to exaggerate her problems by idealizing Jews during the holocaust in fantastical day-dreams if the holocaust. By seeing this it lets the readers see the things she truly deemed important. Though by realizing this though, readers cab sift through her poetry by keeping in mind she is using imagery like this to purposely exaggerate her problems