Research Paper on "Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus: The Carnival Barker"

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Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus:" the carnival barker of personal tragedy

The 20th century feminist poet Sylvia Plath is almost as famous for her biography as she is for the greatness of her poetry, despite the fact that her confessional style has proven to be so influential upon subsequent generations of poets. Plath's suicide attempts while still an undergraduate at Smith College, coupled with her untimely demise as a young mother at her own hands has caused many critics to interpret her work solely through the lens of her personal life ("Sylvia Plath," The Academy of American Poets, 2011). Plath, however, in all of her poems often takes on different 'voices' or personas. Even her autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar was originally published under a pseudonym ("Sylvia Plath," The Academy of American Poets, 2011). "Lady Lazarus," a poem about a woman who has attempted and failed to commit suicide likewise is a dramatic monologue using the voice of a carnival barker and a genuinely tormented woman. The woman alternatively 'sells' herself as a suicide victim and gazes at herself from without, at a distance, as medical curiosity, in addition to voicing her own needs and feelings. The degree to which the poem is about Plath remains ambiguous, even though the poem is often interpreted as straight autobiography. By using the cool and playful tone of a persona, Plath's style suggests that the ultimate meaning of the poem is less a primal scream about the torment of the poet's life than it is an examination of how madness in women is considered to be a kind of freak show in the eyes of the world. The concerns of apparent well-wishes and doctors are self-interested rather than selfless and Plath self-consciou

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sly creates Lady Lazarus as a persona, rather than treats the poem as autobiography.

In the Bible, Lazarus was a man who died and was resurrected by Jesus, a kind of prefiguration to Christ's own resurrection from the dead and his salvation of all humanity to eternal life. However, according to the speaker of the poem, who has also "done it again./One year in every ten/I manage it --, " her resurrection is a medical triumph, not a religious one even though onlookers regard her as a kind of traveling religious sideshow (Plath 1-3). She continues to try to die over and over again, manifesting the almost-humorous failure of incompetent doctors and therapists to truly resurrect the depressed woman, given her determination to return to the grave. They boast that she is their triumph, but she actually manifests their tragic blindness. On the surface the speaker appears happy and smiling, but within she remains disturbed. "Like the cat I have nine times to die," she writes (21). This is despite the fact that the physical evidence of her suicide will evaporate. "The sour breath/Will vanish in a day" (14-15). She may appear 'whole' again, but this is of little value, since she is still broken within. But despite this sense of sorrow, the tone of the poem is playful, even mundane, deflating both the Biblical resonance of the title as well as the seriousness of the act. Critics of the poem, even literary scholars, often note that Plath's supposed nine lives eventually ran out, and "she died by her own hand, gassing herself in a London apartment in 1963 in the grips of a bitter depression" (Beam 2003). The poet does not speak of why she wants to die, but rather focuses on the attitude of supposed caregivers to her attempts at dying. They do not ask why she is trying to die; they merely resurrect her, to satisfy their own attempts of seeming godlike, in a typical, male fashion, and only focus on the fact that her female trappings of beauty, like smooth skin, have been restored.

According to the poem, the speaker 'Lady Lazarus' says she has attempted to die three times, each unsuccessfully. The pubic looks at her death-driven actions as a show rather than trying to understand why she wants to die. In her personal correspondence, Plath often expressed an inner conflict between the role of a wife and mother and her status as a poet. Through her poetry she mocks a world that cannot appreciate the contradiction she saw inherent not only in her life but the lives of all women. She takes on the tone of the carnival barker, implying that rather than being sympathetic, people are curious about her suicide as if she is a freak, and her actions are seen as a conjuring trick without larger, metaphorical significance. "The peanut-crunching crowd/Shoves in to see / Them unwrap me hand and foot/The big strip tease. / Gentlemen, ladies" (26-30). The pornographic strip tease suggests that Plath is laying herself emotionally bare, but also that there is a sexual undercurrent of interest in the gawker's delight at seeing her, as if a female suicide is automatically more interesting than that of a male's, yet not regarded as a tragedy, merely an inevitability of Lady Lazarus' nature. It is the suicide's body, not her art or her verbal expression and her feeling that is significant to the spectators. "In this poem a disturbing tension is established between the seriousness of the experience described and the misleadingly light form of the poem. The vocabulary and rhythms which approximate to the colloquial simplicity of conversational speech, the frequently end-stopped lines, the repetitions which have the effect of mockingly counteracting the violence of the meaning, all establish the deliberately flippant note which this poem strives to achieve" (Aird 1973). The flippancy of the verse mimics the flippancy with which female suicide and female aspirations are often regarded in the world, and also the coldness with which modern medicine has treated feminine functions.

In the voice of Lady Lazarus, Plath does not explicitly call herself a poet. Rather, she says her act of suicide is her art. "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" (41-47). These lines are eerily prescient of Plath's reputation, given that she became as famous as a repeated suicide as she was as a poet. The line that suicide feels like 'hell,' is deflated with her mocking assertion that killing herself and coming back is her 'calling' in life, proving the doctors' apparent success. "Plath's late poems are full of speakers whose rigid identities and violent methods not only parody their torment but also permit them to control it… She is above all a performer, chiefly remarkable for her manipulation of herself as well as of the effects she wishes to have on those who surround her" (Dickie 1975). Lady Lazarus is also full of showmanship, showcasing her own 'tricks' and abilities to die and come back again, trying to assert that it is she who possesses the power of resurrection, not the doctors, although they may lay claim to that ability.

Even while the recovery of the woman from death supposedly is a testimony to the doctor's ability to restore life, there are signs that their attitudes are evil and life-destroying, such as the metaphors of Plath's body that recall the Holocaust, rather than anything holy or life-giving. She calls those who save her 'Herr Doktor' and refers to the 'Jew linen' that covers her face like a shroud. The world's fascination with material objects at a place of death, like a concentration camp is manifested in her reference to "A cake of soap, / A wedding ring, / A gold filling" (77-79). Their obsession with her is an act of scavenging, more than real concern for her needs. They see her as a series of body parts and exploit her, like the Nazis exploited the Jews. The crowd and the doctors both view her in an objectified fashion, and when the speaker states: "Do not think I underestimate your great concern," she clearly speaks ironically as they prod and poke at her: "Ash, ash -- /You poke and stir. / Flesh, bone, there is nothing there -- " (73-76). The references to history are less to specific incidents or to suggest a perfect analogy between Plath and Jewish victims than they are to produce an emotional effect. "The Lady is a legendary figure, a sufferer, who has endured almost every variety of torture. Plath can thus include among Lady Lazarus's characteristics the greatest contemporary examples of brutality and persecution: the sadistic medical experiments on the Jew's by Nazi doctors and the Nazis' use of their victims' bodies in the production of lampshades and other objects. These allusions, however, are no more meant to establish a realistic historic norm in the poem than the allusions to the striptease are intended to establish a realistic social context" (Rosenblatt 1977). Plath creates an enclosed world that partially mirrors some of the concerns of her own, but also is far more extreme, and… READ MORE

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Quoted Instructions for "Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus: The Carnival Barker" Assignment:

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DO NOT USE

Young Goodman Brown,*****

(420-428) *****The Tell Tale Heart,***** (36-40) *****A Rose for Emily***** (30-35); *****The Cask of Amontillado***** (*****Rappaccini*****Ÿs Daughter***** (course materials backpack #6) and *****Godfather Death***** (12-13)

The Open Boat***** (185-201);

*****The Necklace***** (Course materials backpack #8); Read *****The Lottery***** (247-252);

*****A Good Man is Hard to Find***** (369-379); *****Everyday Use***** (455-461); *****Paul*****Ÿs Case*****(491-505) *****The Jilting of Granny Weatherall***** (79-85); *****Barn Burning***** (155-167)

*****A Clean Well-Lighted PLACE

*****Hills like White Elephants***** Fire and Ice***** (703);*****Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening***** (1044); *****The Road Not

Taken***** (859); *****ŸOut Out*****ž*****Because I Could Not Stop for Death***** *****I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died***** (962); *****I Like to

See it Lap the Miles (6/22: SHELLEY: *****Ozymandias***** (YEATS: *****Sailing to Byzantium***** (937).POE:

*****Annabel Lee***** ( THOMAS: *****Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night*****

(824); JARRELL: *****The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner***** *****The Love Song of

J.Alfred Prufrock***** ( *****Daddy***** (: *****Skunk Hour*****

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Writing the Literary Research Paper

A literary research paper utilizes both primary and secondary sources. A primary source is the work or works of literature being analyzed. The secondary source is a piece of literary criticism written about the primary source(s). Some secondary sources include, but are not limited to, the following: journals, magazine articles, newspaper articles, web sites, books, television programs, films, CD-ROM databases, and radio programs. In order to write a successful literary research paper, the ***** must first read the primary source(s) carefully, taking notes as he or she reads and then examine the secondary sources written about the primary source(s). Some *****s find it beneficial to read the criticism first so they will have an idea about what to read for in the primary source. This technique also may allow the reader to develop topics before reading the primary work(s).

For this paper, you will need to choose one primary source, which may be any poem(s) or short story (stories) of literary merit. If you choose one work, it MUST be a work that we DID NOT discuss in class. If you choose more than one work, at least one of the works must be one that we DID NOT discuss in class. For example, you may do a paper discussing Poe*****s use of mood in *****The Cask of Amontillado***** and *****The Pit and the Pendulum.***** Since we read *****The Cask of Amontillado***** in class, you must choose another work to analyze along with it. You are NOT REQUIRED to do a paper on more than one work. Just remember that if you choose to write about one work, it must be a work read outside of class. You may choose one of the authors discussed in class or not. The choice of topics is entirely up to you with the previously mentioned limitations. When researching literary works, some people use highlighters while others take notes in a dialectical journal: you should choose the method that works best for you. The format for the paper will be as follows:

I. Introduction

A. Lead-in (includes title and author of primary source(s) (CM) possibly some (CD)

B. Thesis (one sentence that explains the purpose of the paper)

II. Body Paragraph 1

A. CM

B. Support from primary source(s) (CD)

C. Support from secondary source(s) (CD)

D. CM

III. Body Paragraph 2

A. CM

B. Support from primary source(s) (CD)

C. Support from secondary source(s) (CD)

D. CM

IV. Body Paragraph 3

A. CM

B. Support from primary source(s) (CD)

C. Support from secondary source(s) (CD)

D. CM

V. Conclusion

A. Restatement of thesis (using different words)

B. Closing (CM)

The number of body paragraphs you have correlates to the number of thesis points that you are making; therefore, your paper may have as few as two body paragraphs. Regardless of the number of body paragraphs, the paper must be documented in MLA style. Documentation in a research paper is a two part process. The first part of the documentation is called parenthetical documentation or in-line documentation. When documenting printed sources, such as books, journals, and magazines, you place the author*****s last name(s) and the page number(s) on which you found the information you have just incorporated into your paper. For example, if you were doing a paper on Oscar Wilde*****s The Picture of Dorian Gray, you might have a citation such as (Wilde 42), indicating that the quote you used can be found on page 42 of Wilde*****s novel. If you use more than one work by the same author, you would not only put the author and page number, but also a key word from the title. Let*****s say you were using both *****The Tell Tale Heart***** and *****The Black Cat***** by Poe as your primary sources. For the first source, your citation would read (Poe *****Tell***** 35), and the citation for the second source would read (Poe *****Black***** 15). That way, the reader will know which work is being cited. Documentation for secondary sources is the same except instead of the author of the primary source, you use the author of the secondary source. This documentation method works for all print sources. If you are using an electronic source, such as a web page or database, the in-line citation would be everything listed above except the page number. For example, if you used a journal article taken from a database, you would put the author*****s last name. If you had more than one work by the same author, you would need to put the author*****s name as well as a key word from the title so that the reader can differentiate one source from another. The same would hold true for websites and other non-print sources such as videotapes and recordings.

The second part of the documentation process is the works cited page. It only contains the works you actually used in writing the paper. Your works cited page will contain a minimum of four entries--the primary source and at least three secondary sources. If you write about two primary sources, you works cited page will contain a minimum of five sources, the two primary sources and the three secondary sources. The next page contains a sample works cited page. Please consult an MLA guide or your handbook if needed.

Please remember that this is only a sample works cited page. The first entry is for an essay taken from an anthology of critical essays. The second entry shows the format for a videotape. The third entry is for an online work. The fourth entry illustrates an essay taken from a collection of criticism such as Contemporary Literary Criticism. The fifth entry shows a work taken from a database. The final entry is for a play taken from a collection of plays. If you are not sure of the correct format to use, consult the MLA Handbook, your English 1302 handbook, or the College of the Mainland*****˜s library homepage. There are many online style guides as well. Just be certain that it is MLA style rather than APA, Chicago, Tarrabian, or another style.

Finally, the paper needs to be 4-6 typed, double spaced pages PLUS the works cited page. This works out to roughly a 1000-1500 word paper. Please follow your syllabus for deadlines for both rough drafts and final copies. Due to deadlines imposed by the registrar*****s office, I cannot accept late research papers.

When choosing a topic, you may focus on a single idea such as literary values, religion, society, nature, reform, war or women, the author*****s style, influence, or reputation. Though I will be happy to offer advice and leads, please remember that choosing, shaping, and focusing a topic are integral parts of the assignment and the course as a whole. Please keep in mind that your thesis must make clear your critical approach to the topic. Choose something that interests you. A good start is the list of terminology we discussed during unit one called *****The Elements of Fiction.***** For example, you might do a paper on religious symbolism in the short stories of Flannery O*****Connor or themes of guilt in the stories of Poe. If you are doing your paper on poetry, think about the elements that are found in poems such as figurative language, meter, and rhyme. Use your imagination as well as the criticism to aid you in choosing a topic. See what the critics write about, and choose your topic based on that.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

English 1302

Spring 2007

Mr. Remollino

Paper Requirements

The following list refers to all writing assignments that you will submit in English 1302, including the two short papers (the character analysis and poetry explication), and the longer, research paper. Please keep this requirement list and use it with each of the writing assignments.

All papers for this course need to meet the following requirements in order to be acceptable:

1. Topic must meet the guidelines for each assignment. For example, you must write a character analysis for theme #1 using one of the stories or videos from the first unit. Follow the prompts for each writing sample carefully. I have had students in the past write the research paper for theme #1. They are two completely different assignments.

2. Paper must be word processed. Use size 12 font. Be careful when selecting a font style. Script or other non-professional fonts are not appropriate for formal papers.

3. Paper must be double spaced. In order for me to read an essay, it has to be double spaced. I cannot read or comment on single-spaced work.

4. Always give your writing an original title. Do not call your paper Theme 1, Character Analysis, or *****"A Rose for Emily.*****" Make the title creative, encouraging the reader to want to read your paper.

5. Do not punctuate your own title. If you use the title of the work as a part of your title, punctuate the work*****'s title but not your own. In other words, your own title should not be underlined or enclosed in quotation marks. You only punctuate others*****' titles. Here is an example: A Descent Into Madness: Love and Betrayal in William Faulkner*****'s *****"A Rose for Emily*****

6. Use a full heading. In the upper-left-hand margin, put your name, course (including section number), instructor name, and paper due date. This information should be double spaced as well. Here is a sample:

March 5, 2007

7. In the upper-right-hand corner, put the header, which contains your last name and the page number. If you are not sure how to set up a header, ask me. It should ONLY contain your last name (with only the first letter capitalized) and the page number (no p. or pp.). The header should look like this: Smith 2. All pages, including the first page, should have the header in the upper-right-hand corner.

8. Use one inch margins on all sides. I will not take a ruler and measure, but a paper with uneven margins looks unprofessional.

9. Email your essay as an RTF file attached to an email document. Consult the documentation for your word processor or contact me if you do not know how to save your work as an RTF file or do not know how to attach documents. This is very important. Papers not sent as RTF files are unacceptable, and you will receive an email from me telling you to resend it if it is in the wrong format. If you resend it after the deadline, it will be considered late.

10. Proofread your essay carefully for errors in grammar, mechanics, spelling, and rhetoric. It does not matter how good the content is if the paper is riddled with errors.

11. Make sure you document your essay properly in MLA style. I will go over MLA style before each of the writing assignments, indicating specifics for each particular assignment. You will receive a copy of the plagiarism policy and will sign that you have received this policy. Plagiarism in all its forms is unacceptable.

12. Make sure you are aware of all deadlines. Late themes are penalized one letter grade per day late. The research paper will not be accepted late. I do not count weekends when assessing penalties.

14. Finally, if you have any questions about an assignment, ask. I try to be very specific about assignments, and after 21 years of teaching college English, I usually know what to expect and try to prevent any problems or confusion. Please adhere to these guidelines. I provide them to you in hope that you will read them and write a successful essay.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CALL ME 4093543819

*****

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