Lady Lazarus

Throughout the poem, Plath uses metaphors about the Holocaust to illustrate Lady Lazarus’s pain and suffering, and this may provoke sympathy in the reader. She decribes Lady Lazarus’ foot as a “paperweight” and her face is “featureless fine Jew linen” which may connote the narrator’s feelings of being heavy and undistinguishable from those around her. The poem may be an extended metaphor for depression. If the character’s foot is a “paperweight” then it would be difficult to move, and Plath may be alluding to the feeling of being weighed down, possibly by misery. The enjambment of these lines separates all of the images, and makes the metaphors have more impact upon the reader. The way she describes Lady Lazarus’s face suggests that she is relating to the feeling of the Jewish victims in the Holocaust because she may feel like she is less than human. Plath elevates the narrator’s pain to the level of a Holocaust victim. Some readers may identify with Lady Lazarus and feel sympathy because the metaphors are so horrific and extreme.
Sylvia Plath may be referring to the gas chambers and crematoriums when she depicts that Lady Lazarus “melts to a shriek”. This metaphor is very descriptive as Lady Lazarus is imagining that she is burning with the Jews, and some readers may feel that the verb “melt” sounds too slow and glamorized for what is happening. “Melt” connotes something happening slowly and quietly, but in this case there would be a great deal of pain. Some readers may feel that that Plath has no level of understanding as she was not there at that time and using the Holocaust metaphors throughout is