Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath and the Art of Dying

Alexandra Mello

English 12

Mr. Lothrop

Poetry Essay

Lady Lazarus

Dying

Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.

It's easy enough to do it and stay put.

It's the theatrical

As an artist myself, a form of art such as painting or drawing comes assumedly natural. It has been something I've always excelled in to an extent, my calling perhaps, or my forte, as any passionate writer would say about writing , or a painter of painting. A work of art can be something that can come from an artist's emotion whether it be pure elation or absolute anguish, human emotion comes natural to us humans, as does art to artists in most cases. In the selected passage (lines 42-51) of Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus, Plath describes dying as something that comes natural to her, an artform she excels

in, her calling.

In the first two lines Plath states that dying is a form of art and clearly lets the reader know she has had more than one encounter with death. Earlier on in the poem Plath compares herself to a cat with nine lives to let the reader know that at this was written at the time of her third encounter with death. She almost boasts of her knowledge in the subject of death, letting the reader know how much experience shes had in the area already. In lines 47-48, "I do it so it feels like hell..I do it so it feels real...", Plath implies that her attempts at suicide could serve as replacement for a lack of emotion or to mask intense pain. Plath's