Death Over Life

            After reading the poem “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath one can see that Plath (the narrator) does not want to live and that her life is filled with suffering. She is constantly referring to suicide and death. She also uses many metaphors throughout the essay. Sylvia Plath is ready for death.

In "Lady Lazarus," Plath confesses her several attempts to commit suicide. In the second stanza, it seems like she kills herself and comes back to life. She can't explain how she's still alive, "A sort of walking miracle." Plath mentions her fight against life, she calls life her enemy, "O my enemy" something that won't let her die. Because every time she tries to commit suicide, she's being brought back to life by doctors. She mentions that she is like a cat "And like the cat I have nine times to die." She has no success in killing herself, but she looks forward to the ninth time, in which she'll die for good. Plath also seems to be celebrating the times she has died and she seems proud of it. “I do it exceptionally well.” She reveals that her suffering is life. “The sour breath/ I turn and burn.”

            In the poem it is clear that Plath resents the times she has been saved from death. One can see this in the lines “Comeback in broad day/To the same place, the same face the same brute.” She gives the reader an idea on how much she is trying to avoid life because her life is filled with suffering.

           

Plath also uses the symbol of Lazarus which is a biblical reference to the man named Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. With the title of the poem being “Lady Lazarus” Plath is symbolizing that she is like Lazarus in the sense that she has risen from death on many separate occasions. She also uses the symbol of the phoenix, “Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair.” The phoenix is another symbol for something that rises from the dead because a phoenix is a mythological bird that when it died would set on fire and from the ashes a new bird would be born.