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.