Examination of Daddy and Lady Lazarus Two Poems by Sylvia Plath

Literature is most successful when it is dealing with the big issues of the world.

Successful literature is one in which we can gain insight and understanding into the world around us from the subtle details of the text. Sylvia Plath’s poems ‘Lady Lazarus’ and ‘Daddy’ is two such pieces of literature that use the deeper, hidden meanings behind imagery to convey major issues such as oppression of women. Although the poem is centered around the narrator’s personal experiences with suicide she successfully uses her own experiences as a platform to address major issues of her time - oppression of women and this is what makes her poems particularly meaningful and successful.

Plath wrote her poem in the 60s, a time in which society was largely patriarchal. Plath successfully criticises this patriarchal nature in society through the use of Holocaust imagery and clever structure. By making references to the suffering of the Jews she is able to offer the reader an insight into the great degree of emotional suffering an oppressed woman feels, which was a major issue that was seldom discussed at the time. In the poem ‘Daddy’, Plath explains that she “began to talk like a jew” and she uses the simile “chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen” to compare her intense emotional suffering in a male dominated society to the suffering of the Jews. Similar to the way the Jews had no control over where they were to be taken by the Germans, the narrator feels that the life a woman was out of their own control, but rather under the absolute authority of men. This lack of control over oneself and the silenced voice of women in society at the time is further highlighted by the regimented five line stanza throughout the poem. The lack of variation in the line numbers gives the poem a rather mundane structure which reinforces the idea that oppression of an individual or lack of freedom takes away the vibrancy and enjoyment of living. Moreover, the rigid 5 line structure is also reminiscent of the inflexible role women were expected to assume in the patriarchal society of the Sixties which would have been of major concern to many. Plath also successfully uses repetition throughout ‘Daddy’. For instance she starts by repeating “you do not do, you do not do.” This repetition creates a rhythm to the poem which seems innocent, almost like a nursery rhyme. Through the constant repetitions throughout the poem, Plath successfully highlights the dangers of oppression individual is almost belittling as it forces the victim into a submissive, childlike state.

Plath uses her poems as a platform on which she is able to address major issues, particularly oppression of women in the Sixties. Lady Lazarus is another one of her poems which is also centered around this same idea of female oppression. As with Daddy, Plath uses Holocaust imagery to highlight just how profound and detrimental oppression can be to an individual as it strips a person of their identity and their ability to express themselves. This is evident through the metaphor “My face a featureless, fine Jew linen.” The face is part of a person’s identity and is how we distinguish between different people. However, here the narrator describes her own face as unrecognisable and the alliteration of “ff’ sound is gentle, suggesting that a person’s individuality is fragile and oppression can easily strip of person of what makes them their own unique self. Moreover, the narrator describes each individual body part separately as “my skin bright as a Nazi lampshade, my right foot a paperweight”. All of these comparisons allude to the terrible treatment of Jews during the Holocaust. It was rumored that the body parts of Jews were used by Nazis to make lampshades. Therefore, Plath again successfully highlights how big of an issue oppression is. Because like the Jews, oppression not only strips an individual of their identity but can lower an individual's sense of self worth making them feel unworthy, similar to how lampshades and paperweights are often regarded as purposeless and unimportant objects.

Throughout the poem Lady Lazarus, Plath also uses rhetorical questions such as “Do I terrify? The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?. The listing of separate body parts reinforces that oppression is a serious issue the audience should be aware of. This is because the it successfully emphasises oppression as being able to strip an individual of their identity as we are unable to decipher an image of a full individual from the separate parts. But more importantly, the body parts seem to make reference to a skull. Hence, Plath suggests that oppression can cause an individual to feel dead inside or even lack the will to live if they can’t live with freedom. The use of rhetorical questions as well as the phrase “these are my hands, my knees” gives the narrator an almost patronising tone. As this is a confessional poem, Plath’s personal voice may be coming through as she seems to be belittling/criticising the patriarchal nature of society at the time. Another interpretation of this could be that the narrator is mocking the oppressive actions of men suggesting that by oppressing an individual we are putting them below ourselves, treating them like children causing them to feel unworthy and inferior. Plath’s use of circus imagery is another subtle yet successful way in which she brings up the major issue of oppression being almost dehumanising to its victim. Here she uses a metaphor to state that “the peanut-crunching crowd shoves in to see them unwrap me hand and foot”. Plath is again, reinforcing the dangers of the largely disregarded issue of oppression. This is because she compares a victim of oppression to a mistreated circus animal hence the narrator is suggesting that a victim of oppression also feels misunderstood, whilst on the surface they may appear to be content like an animal in a show, what goes on beneath the surface is unknown and often horrific. Furthermore, Plath may be criticising society’s disregard or ignorance for such a major issue as she feels that this issue of oppression isn't taken seriously, rather it is being overlooked as some sort of entertainment, similar to how a circus audience overlooks the mistreatment of an animal and focuses on the entertainment of the show.

Overall, Plath’s poetry, “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” are both highly successful pieces of literature. This is because she is able to use subtle techniques such as imagery and structure to evoke powerful emotions in the reader, allowing us to understand the harm oppression has on an individual. In turn, her poems were successful in addressing major issues such as oppression of women, a problem which was often disregarded or seldom mentioned at the time her poems were written.