An Explication of the Poem Lady Lazarus, by Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath's poem Lady Lazarus is an extremely bitter dramatic monolog with twenty-eight stanzas. Apparently, the title of the poem is ironic as it identifies a kind of a human oxymoron, that is, a female Lazarus, not the known biblical male. The poem features a persona who refuses to conform to the traditional ideas of lady like behavior. She is weak and has been driven to death three times by her enemies and critics. The poem derives the overriding impacts from the colloquial language, and as a result, the poetess perceives herself to be the mythical archetype, Lazarus. There are various poetic devices used in the poem to portray the speaker's tone. Plath uses, imagery, diction, repetition and sounds to stress the progression of themes from revenge, exploitation, and resentment which serves as the central point of analysis.…show more content… The speaker's tone exemplifies how depressed the speaker was about the whole idea of death. Consequently, the choice of words also helps in setting the foundation for the tone of the poem. Perhaps, the poem is defined by its tone and mood which brings out the long development that is evident in the characterization of the persona.
In the first three stanzas, the tone sets forth as very soft and subtle and seems to be echoing slowly in a way to convince the reader to sympathize with her. The tone deeper and lower as the poem progresses which reflects the progression of abuses and pain that the speaker undergoes. She reaches the lowest point of the tone when she says that "Dying is an art, like everything else" (Plath). The persona sounds defeated and very somber by stating that she dies well, but it is also at this point that tone and mood of the poem takes a drastic
