After the posthumous publication of Sylvia Plath's Ariel, the poet exploded onto the scene of second-wave feminism, widely seen as a victim of her mental illness and the men of his life. Although the tragedy of Plath's life is inseparable from her work, the subtler elements of her poetry are often discarded to fit the narrative of victimhood, particularly her complicated use of humor. Plath used humor in her poetry as a way to describe and reckon with her daily life, often including images of the Holocaust as an exaggerated representation of her existence. The style of humor he uses falls squarely into the category of “incongruity theory,” a theory that assumes that people find things funny when conventional narratives, “scripts,” are broken or flipped. Every aspect of “Lady Lazarus” is incongruous, from the premise to the poetic details. Although the poem is not something that most people would find funny to laugh out loud, Plath's use of humor to draw false equivalents between her life and the life of Lady Lazarus reveals an existence that is undeniably tragic but inexorably tenacious. Even in life, Plath was well aware of the effect her confessional poetry had on her legacy, shown in “Lady Lazarus” when she speaks of a “very great burden” to share such a deeply personal part of herself (Plath 61 ). “Lady Lazarus,” one of Plath's most famous poems, is an effort to regain control over her own image and rebel against the common belief that her existence is simply a tragic monstrosity. Plath creates the incongruous character of Lady Lazarus to illustrate her life as different forms of exercising power and their mutual effects on the oppressed, probably in the hope that by claiming ownership of her power she will once again be in control of her power. life.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe main incongruous element of the first part of "Lady Lazarus" is not only the narrator's ambiguous existence halfway between life and death, but his apparent feeling of pride in realizing it. At the beginning of the poem, Lady Lazarus is in command. His voice begins proud and boastful, demanding praise for his accomplishments, proclaiming that once again he has done it. As becomes obvious later in the poem, it is suicide, or something similar. Lady Lazarus jokes with the reader in a sarcastic manner, saying "O my enemy / Do I terrify you?" (10-11). Since it retains the appearance of a living skeleton, it obviously terrifies. Not only that, she takes pride in showing off her body, including “her nose, her eye sockets, her entire set of teeth” (Plath 13). She challenges her enemy, or those who made her this way, to revel in the horror of their own creation so she can draw power from their revulsion. Throughout the poem, Lady Lazarus returns to her initial sarcastic tone, as one of the few things she can control is how she talks about her life. More interesting, but less entertaining, is the Bible verse from which "O my enemy" is borrowed (10). In Micah 7:8, one of the Israelites declares: “Do not rejoice, O my enemy. Even though I fall, I will rise again” (The Bible, Micah 7:8). This explicitly Jewish Old Testament statement is strangely juxtaposed, in what can only be considered a darkly humorous way, with Holocaust imagery. Lady Lazarus draws a relationship between herself and the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, describing herself as "A sort of walking miracle, myskin as bright as a Nazi lampshade / My right foot / A paperweight / My face is a fine, shapeless linen / Jew." (4-9). While the Jewish people are dying in one of the most horrific genocides in global history, Lady Lazarus uses religious text to describe her return to power. While the inclusion of the Bible could be read as a hope, or even a promise to be resurrected, the incongruity between the desperation of the Holocaust and the hope of the Ancient. TestamentThe story of the Testament intentionally leaves ambiguous the successes of Lady Lazarus's efforts to regain control. The poem becomes even more incongruous when Plath changes perspective to show what Lady Lazarus looks like when she is not a skeleton, describing her as “a smiling woman/I have. only thirty” (19-20). Despite our modern understanding that even the young and beautiful can be crippled by mental illness, the juxtaposition of internal reality with external reality does not match. Even more incongruous is Lady Lazarus' frank reckoning with her situation: "And like the cat I have nine times to die" (21). Fear of death, perhaps the most unifying human trait of all, is absent in Lady Lazarus. Even more worryingly, she seems to enjoy her talent for dying and regenerating, or at least finds it entertaining, which is especially evident in the extreme discrepancy between the rotten corpse she internally sees herself as and the smiling woman she appears to be. His perpetual death and resurrection are almost cartoonish as he seems to long for death, but is unable to achieve it. The first power switch occurs when Plath depicts Lady Lazarus being undressed in a gruesome striptease. Imagine the power dynamics of a traditional striptease, where a classically gorgeous and sensual woman provocatively removes her clothes in front of a captive audience. Since it's a performance, the stripper holds all the power. The inconsistency between a traditional strip tease and Lady Lazarus' version is evident. A striptease is a display of the female body in all its sexual glory, as desired by men. Plath breaks that script by replacing the seductive woman with a decomposed skeleton that regrows flesh. Because Lady Lazarus does not undress herself, but is rather discarded “hands and feet” (28), the power she would normally have as a performer is transferred to those who discard her and the “peanut-munching crowd” (26). Although the humor is grotesque, it is still humor as Plath compares a suicide attempt to a sexual performance, making death erotic. It is also important to note that this haunting performance is no less sexual in nature, as the crowd “files in to see her” (27) reveal her suicide scars with the same perverse allure of a striptease show. The striptease highlights Lady Lazarus's, and Plath's, inability to choose how to present themselves as women struggling with suicide. No matter what else they have to offer, suicide attempts are all most people will ever see. Many of the lines in this section of "Lady Lazarus" are indicting the voyeuristic obsession with death, suicide, and depression that we associate Plath with to this day. At this point in the poem, Lady Lazarus presents herself as an artist, fully in command of dying and returning to life. It's not just his livelihood, it's everything he seems to have full control over. Neither “my enemy” nor the peanut-munching crowd can limit his effective ability to die and resurrect. Plath presents this idea in the lines: “Dying/ Is an art, like everything else./ I do it exceptionally well” (45). There are a couple of notable humorous aspects to itthese lines. First, the enjambment after the line “To die” is itself incongruous, as it is followed by the phrase “It is an art” (43-44). This idea of ​​death as an art form elevates Lady Lazarus' work before it collapses in the following sentence, "like everything else" (44). His admission that everything is art produces a flattening effect. If everything is an art, that means even things like going to work, cutting your toenails, and recycling are all works of art. Suddenly, Lady Lazarus's hard-won ability to die and resurrect is much less impressive. For Lady Lazarus, her cycle of death and resurrection is an attempt to prove anything. He says it so dryly when he explains, "I do it so it feels like hell. / I do it so it feels real" (46-47). The persistent anaphora of these two lines points to the heart of this section of the poem: "I do it as it feels." The second ignition switch of the poem gives the reader a brief glimpse into Lady Lazarus's existence as a commodified life-and-death simulator under the ownership of "Herr Doktor/Herr Enemy” (65-66). Although Lady Lazarus is still a work of art in this part of the poem, is no longer his work of art. He explicitly states: "I am your work / I am your precious" (67-68). Holocaust metaphors, addressing "my enemy", the one who owns and controls her, such as Herr Doktor The German spelling of Doktor is a clear allusion to Holocaust doctors such as Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who conducted horrific experiments. about Jewish children (United 1).Yet even as she is dehumanized, commodified, and put on display by Herr Doktor, Lady Lazarus retains her boldly sarcastic voice, which is a way of claiming ownership of her body and her life Al cry of “A miracle!” after her resurrection, Lady Lazarus confesses, “This knocks me out” (55), as if she herself is doubled over with laughter at the nature of her existence the third and final power switch occurs at the lines, “Ashes , ash - /You poke and stir” (73), and is highlighted by a return to Holocaust imagery and a change in point of view. Lady Lazarus now looks down on the crematorium where Jewish bodies are incinerated and imagines herself being burned. Instead of being watched by people, as in the case of the peanut-munching crowd, she watches them, as if from beyond the grave. He describes the scene by saying, “Flesh, bone, there's nothing there / A soap cake, / A wedding ring, / A gold filling” (75-78). Although she claims there is nothing to see, these everyday objects are the last remaining evidence of the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust. The inconsistency is obvious. There is nothing insignificant about these things, and even more darkly funny is that an entire human life can be lived with nothing to show for it but a bar of soap to keep those who killed you clean. the voice changes ominously to a warning to God and Lucifer, presumably also referring to Herr Doktor. In the lines “Herr God, Herr Lucifer/ Beware/ Beware” (79-81), he implies that he is a being more powerful than any deity. She will be resurrected, but unlike the biblical Lazarus, she does not need Jesus to resurrect her. The refusal of assistance is clear if we consider the difference in language between the biblical text in which Lazarus is called back to life by Jesus (John 12.1-41), and Plath's poem in which Lady Lazarus "resurrects" on her own initiative. Here, as Lady Lazarus rises from the dead like a regenerated phoenix, she reclaims her power. As fire consumes oxygen to fuel itself, Lady Lazarus eats men. Though she seeks retribution from those who hid her power from her with vengeance without.