Link to my previous blog for Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus"

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15292

The Metaphorical Analysis of Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus"

During my reading of Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” I discovered three metaphors I found particularly interesting. These intriguing metaphors are in the seventh and eighth stanzas where she compares herself to a cat, thirteen and fourteenth stanzas where she compares herself to a shut seashell, and then compares worms to pearls, and in the final stanza of the poem, stanza twenty eight, where she compares the men she eats to air.

In the end of the seventh stanza and the beginning of the eighth stanza Plath writes, “And like the cat I have nine times to die./This is Number Three” (Plath, poets.org). These two lines have a threatening tone. It seems as if she is stating her inability to die as if to state her immovability from the physical world. Why choose the cat as a comparison? The cat can be seen as a threatening and cunning creature because of its incapability to easily die, but the cat can also be a sexual image. By viewing the cat in the metaphor as a sexual image, it would seem that she is objectifying herself, just as the “crowd/Shoves in to see/Them unwrap me hand and foot--/The big strip tease” (Plath, poets.org). Because of her use of the phrase “strip tease” it is assumed by the reader that she is being objectified. It seems that there is an underlying threatening tone in the poem, that I believe, she fully expresses in the last stanza of “Lady Lazarus.” However, it seems that by comparing herself to a cat, a sexual image, she is objectifying herself. Later in the poem she speaks of a charge for eyeing her scars, hearing of her heart and attaining a part or piece of her body. She openly objectifies herself by saying she is something to be owned and experienced. She self-inflicts objectification onto herself. This idea can also be linked to the idea of her self-inflicted suicide attempt later in this poem.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth stanza, Plath writes, “the second time I meant/to last it out and not come back at all./I rocked shut/As a seashell./They had to call and call/And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls” (Plath, poets.org). Sea shells are extremely fragile, and difficult to open without harming the condition of the shell. When reading the lines surrounding this metaphor it becomes clear to me that she compares herself to a seashell as a way to express the fragility of her emotional ability to keep herself alive. This comparison of Plath to a seashell also conveys her need to shut herself off from the physical and emotional world, just as a sea shell shuts itself off from the world; she detaches herself from the entire Outside. The idea of Plath’s desire for the end of her life is especially strong in the lines “Dying/Is an art, like everything else,/I do it exceptionally well” (Plath, poets.org). This idea of Plath’s yearning for death can be inferred by her use of words; connotations and images are conjured by the audience upon reading this poem.

            Later in these same two stanzas, Plath compares the worms “they” had to pick off of her to pearls. This metaphor, which is a continuation of her seashell metaphor, seemed to be an oxymoron. Worms are considered dirty and unappealing, whereas pearls are beautiful and highly desired. So why would worms be described as pearls, when there is seemingly nothing in common? I believe by her particular choice of the words in this metaphor she tries to glamorize the idea of self-inflicted death. Because of her obvious fascination with death and her personal history, I can assume she thought of death as a beautiful escape and thus attempted to express this as well as attempted to persuade her readers to adopt her view, which is why she chose such beautiful words and images to match in metaphor with the grotesque images associated with death.

Later in the poem, in stanza 28, the final stanza of the poem, she writes, “Out of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air” (Plath, poets.org). Throughout the poem she seems to be in a weak state, but in this last stanza, she seems to rise against the people who objectify her. She states in the last stanza, that she is fed by air. If the air is men, and the men are the people who objectify her, she is essentially saying that she feeds upon them. This is an extremely threatening idea, she persuades the audience to think, through the entire poem that she is weak and in the last stanza she reveals to her audience that she is the true strength, and is fed by and risen up by the people who believe they are breaking her down. By comparing the men who objectify her to air, she creates a new perception of them. Instead of her tormentors they are her food. She consumes them as if they are nothing, just as they had seen her as nothing more than an object, therefore taking away their power over her. But I believe her argument can be seen in another frame. It appears she is attempting to persuade the audience to see her perspective. This bird seems to be a continuation of the cat metaphor; neither of the animals die easily. She tries multiple times to end her life unsuccessfully, which is her reasoning behind her usage of the phoenix and the cat in her metaphors. She is tormented by the men who objectify her. They are like air because they feed the fire that consumes her. This consuming fire causes her death, but also her rebirth, thus she is unable to die when she attempts to take her life. The last stanza can either be seen as a reveal of the true identity of her argument where she is a threatening and cunning woman who fools and consumes the men who objectify her, or the last stanza can be seen as a further plea for final death. I personally prefer to believe the interpretation of her threatening strength that tricks the men into being consumed.

Video for Group Discussion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RUMpQqMuFc

The Hollow Men
T.S. Eliot

MISTAH KURTZ—HE DEAD.
A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkling of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.

"Because I said so" : Parental Ethos

The phrase "Because I said so" is commonly used among parents. But what does it really mean? I've been in a store on several occasions where this situation has occurred: a child does something the parent does not like, the parent tells the child to stop, and when the child asks why the parent simply says, "Because I said so."

Why? Why do parents feel as though their word is final only because the words are being spoken by them? My idea is that parents feel entitled to this Ethos. But should it ever be questioned? I think so.

I believe the parents should explain their reasons for reprimanding their children instead of defaulting to this pseudo-entitlement to Ethos, the consequences for not explaining one's self can be detrimental to the child's development.

A movie I watched recently about a woman in her early twenties being pestered by her over bearing mother is another example. When her mother would encroach on her daughter's personal life and attempt to tell her daughter to make certain decisions, her daughter would ask her why she was being so intrusive, her mother would only respond with the phrase, "Because I said so." Her mother felt the same sense of entitlement to Ethos that thousands of adults in parenthood also feel they posses. Although this is an exaggerated example of the Parental Ethos, this still holds true in every day life. 

Should parents feel this entitlement to Ethos? Should it be given and taken away at certain times or when the child reaches a certain age? Yes, I believe so.

Parental Ethos is an often abused tool. I believe it has its positive qualities such as when trying to impart certain morals and values within the child, to help them in the long term and future of their life- but even this can be disputed.

However, Parental Ethos also has a darker side. Parents often default to the phrase "Because I said so"- possibly out of laziness- and do not realize the consequences of this action. By simply telling the child those four words, the parents miss the multiple opportunities to teach the children an actual lesson and help them develop critical thinking, social skills, and the skills to help them determine right from wrong.

I believe this Parental Ethos should be...not completely disregarded, but diluted when the child begins growing older, this way the child can begin to form their own opinions and skills necessary for their all around wellness and quality of life. 

Parental Ethos must be something heavily monitored, it can easily be abused. This tool must not be underestimated- by the good influence but also the damage it can leave.

Rhetoric Response 1

KAIROS

This term has been played with constantly in different forms. In writings of love the importance of Kairos is detrimental to the outcome. In Sports, the ‘play’ depends on whether the ball is thrown and the catcher is available at the right time. In digital media, Kairos is left open for interpretation by the viewer.

Because the internet is so vast, something is constantly being seen or discovered. People are discovering new videos on Youtube every day. When I first came to college I was shown a video by someone who had just found it, and a year later someone else had recently discovered it and showed it to me again. Something as simple as a Youtube video can circulate and be found by anyone in the world within a matter of minutes, or years depending on the circumstances. These circumstances being: whether or not there is access to a computers or TVs, having friends who own computers or TVs.

I believe digital media has not canceled out Kairos, but prolonged it as a process. There are now two types of Kairos: Present Kairos and Past Kairos. An example: living in the late eighteen hundreds and attending a speech. This is present Kairos. In this situation, Kairos is very limited to this one time. No one outside of this occasion would know about the events of this speech. If the listener is not present, he/she misses the Kairos all-together. However, in present day terms, if someone were to attend a speech, this listener would be able to experience the speech, but because this speech is most likely being recorded and/or being reported on, the audience- or the people affected by this speech- is not only limited to the people in the room, but anyone and everyone connected to the internet.

http://www.ted.com/ is a great website for intellectual, academic, artistic and motivational speeches. This website is an exact example of Past Kairos. If the internet/digital media did not exist, these speeches given would never be seen by anyone else than those in that very room at that very time.

The internet has created Past Kairos. This way, no one is limited by time. Anyone can see any post in any website at any given time. A post made in the early 2000’s can still be seen by us in the present day, depending on the situation and opportunities that arise and fall in to place. There is more of a sense of inclusion in the world that the internet has opened; such as the events in the news, in ground breaking academic studies, and nonsensical entertainment internet videos and posts. These events happen all around the world at any given time, but because of digital media, the opportunities to view or be affected by these events does not conclude when the event ends. 

SYNECDOCHE

The general definition of Synecdoche is the use of referring to a part of something as a whole or vice versa. But to me, this definition is too surface. What does the use of this term actually mean, not just do?

In the internet, this kind of grouping happens regularly. From something as simple as a website page with different tabs; click on these tabs and you are given a variety of options to choose from that have been grouped under ‘Contact Us’ or ‘Membership’ or ‘Student.’ http://www.aiia.org/ is an example of this use of grouping. That particular website has grouped every possible link pertaining to the tab’s subject, into one list under the tab. Another example is with the categorizing of films. Romantic Comedies, Dramas, Horror, Thriller- these are all groupings of films being referred to as an entire genre.

I think there has also been a synecdoche of the people on the internet. Once people join the internet they are placed into that grouping and are thrown into the online world and thrown to the mercy of the internet and those that use it. There is a certain level of anonymity that is available through the internet, but because of this anonymity there have been a synecdoche of identity. Many faceless people are grouped into these categories and referred to as a whole, such as Anonymous- an internet group. http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/the-different-types-of-people-there-are-on-the-internet/ This informal article is an example of that categorizing of people. I believe the internet has helped the connection of people across the world, but it has also hindered because people are suddenly able to hide their identity, throw caution to the wind and in some cases, lose sense of their humanity. I have been roaming through the internet and on several occasions come across a few disturbing posts made by faceless users. This idea of grouping people occurs every day in non-digital media settings as well, when someone sees another individual and places them into a category such as jock, nerd, meat head, weirdo, goth, and so on. Synecdoche creates the opportunity to simplify otherwise tedious actions such as a grouping on a website page, or in a film industry. But other than the categorizing of items, I believe synecdoche can be harmful to society. It becomes dangerous when this idea of synecdoche starts being used on people, especially in an internet setting where identity is already in question.