Silvia Plath

     I thought that it was interesting as I read Lady Lazarus by Silvia Plath that it kept running through my mind that the speaker was either speaking about suicide or divorce throughout most of the poem.  I had not yet read Plath's biography.  I followed up by reading her biography to see if I was right on one of those guesses.  As it turns out, I was correct on both counts.
     Lady Lazarus seems to be able to rise from the dead.  The death of her father was the first time she died.  Her first suicide attempt was the second time.  This poem is about the divorce:  "This is Number Three. / What a trash / To annihilate each decade" (Lines 19-21).  Each decade of her life was marked by a significant tragedy:  the death of her father when she was eight, her attempted suicide in college, and the divorce from her husband in her early thirties.  It helps to read her biography and reread the poem to see how Plath refers to the second time she "died":

                                            "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."  (Lines 37-42)

Her many references to Nazi behavior seem to be a statement as to her suffering.  She is comparing both her father and her ex-husband to Nazis.  To be honest, reading about how her ex-husband "edited" her poetry after her death, I'm thinking that she was not far off in that comparison.
       I really didn't know whether I would enjoy Silvia Plath's poetry or not.  I knew the name of course, but I had never read her poetry.  To be perfectly honest, I went into it not expecting a great deal.  It has been my experience in this class that some of the things that I don't expect much out of end up surprising me.  I didn't think to much of Ginsberg when I heard a recitation.  Then I read Howl and was sorry that I had judged so harshly before.  Silvia Plath was the same way.  I enjoyed Lady Lazarus a great deal.  While I have not enjoyed everything that I have had to read for this class, I have been pleasantly surprised by a great deal of it.  While much of the reading was not what I would have chosen, it was what was necessary to open my mind to some new poets and writers that I had not previously considered.  For that, I am thankful.  After all, that was the purpose of taking the class.