The Story Archive

Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath · 1965 CE · Poem · Modern / American · Contemporary

She has done it again, one year in every ten she manages it, and she offers a skin bright as a Nazi lampshade and a face of featureless fine Jew linen to the peanut-crunching crowd that shoves in to watch the wrapping come off. She is thirty, this is the third time, and the first was an accident. Composed in the same Devon autumn as Daddy and named for the raising in the Gospel of John, it stages dying as a professional turn done for an audience.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
Psychological
Theme
Death & MortalityRebirthSuffering & EnduranceIdentity & Self
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
ScapegoatShapeshifter
Plot structure
ConfessionRebirth
Symbol / motif
FireThe StageThe Garment
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
IronicLyrical
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues