Sarah Shin

“Dying…I do it exceptionally well”: Death Imagery of Plath’s Poems
The symbol of a father figure is often associated with that of an authoritarian head of household who superimposes specific ideology and principles of society upon their children. Sylvia Plath was no different. Although her father was absent and abusive, his sudden death took a toll on Plath. Plath criticizes men and society based on her relationship with her father and rebels against the societal standards that restricted her as a wife, mother, and poet in her life. In two of her most famous poems, “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus”, Plath uses images of death to portray the role of her father in her life, to criticize societal standards, and to accentuate the art of dying.
By using images of death, Plath effectively shows her relationship with her father, even after he died. In “Lady Lazarus”, Plath illustrates her first suicide and states “The first time it happened I was ten./It was an accident” (35). She wanted to die to find peace and be with her father in another world. Her saviors however do not understand her motive for dying but she tells them, “If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two” (“Daddy” 71) and that she has lost a part of herself. Upon self-reflection later on, she did not need to die just for her father, who was often difficult and harshly treated all of his family. Plath often compared him to Nazi and herself, a Jew. Eventually Plath comes to terms with her father’s death, saying “Daddy, you can lie back now” (“Daddy 75). At the end of “Lady Lazarus”, she states boldly, “I eat men like air” (28) to emphasis her newfound confidence in overcoming not only the harsh relationship with her father, but also her difficult marriage to Ted Hughes.
Plath’s rejection of her father later led on to reveal also, the overall disconnection she had with society through the use of death imagery. In “Daddy” Plath starts by saying, “You do not do, you do not do/For thirty years, poor and white,/Barely daring to breathe or Achoo” when she first lashes out against society. Society has muffled her voice to the point where she is almost dead and is just for show. When she attempted to die, she said, “I turn and burn/Do not think I underestimate your great concern” (“Lady Lazarus” 72). She is cynical because society is concerned about her publicized manner of dying, not the factors of her suffering leading up to her death. However they abandon her instead for entertainment, and kill her by marveling and gaping at her. In “Daddy”, she describes the German Nazis as scraping people “flat by the roller” (17). Figuratively, this shows the harsh discipline exhibited by her father, a German Nazi, in fulfilling the role of authoritative father as dictated by society to control her. She then says in “Lady Lazarus”, “You poke and stir/Flesh, bone there is nothing there” (75) to show her unwillingness to be held in a coffin and want to move on.
Also by using death imagery, Plath depicts death as an art form through which she learns to come to terms with her father’s death. When Plath tries to commit suicide she says, “Soon, soon the flesh/The grave cave ate will be/At home on me” (“Lady Lazarus” 16), seeing death as a new form of life where she is grafted into nature, away from the struggles of real life. However, she describes being saved as others having “pulled me out of the sack/And they stuck me together with glue” (“Daddy” 62) to criticize revival as messy, awkward, and ungraceful. Then, she feels the life sucked out of her by others, comparing them to a vampire “who said he was you/And drank my blood for a year” (“Daddy” 72). Plath further glorifies dying, saying “I do it so it feels like hell/I do it so it feels real/I guess you could say I’ve a call” (“Lady Lazarus” 46) and shows readers the theatrical process of dying.
Plath uses death in order to show the progression of her relationships with people, family and public. She seems to use death to emphasize the struggles in her life cast upon her by her father and society. However, she acknowledges the artistic techniques in dying and uses death as a solution to her problems to escape from the hardships she has lived through in her life. Plath, like all other poets, wrote poetry to better understand life and the people she knew. “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” exhibit some of the most difficult aspects of her life, an invaluable perspective of Plath’s, in the simple form of words on paper – an art.
Word Count: 775