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 illness mental and the men in his life. Although the tragedy of Plath's life is inseparable from her work, more subtle elements of her poetry are often pushed aside to accommodate the narrative of victimhood, particularly her complex use of humor. Plath used humor in her poetry as a way to both describe and reflect on her daily life, often including images of the Holocaust as an exaggerated representation of her existence. The style of humor she uses fits neatly into the category of “incongruity theory,” a theory that says people find things funny when conventional narratives, “scripts,” are broken or inverted. Every aspect of “Lady Lazarus” is incongruous, from its premise to its poetic details. Although the poem is not something most people would find funny, Plath's use of humor to draw false equivalents between her own life and that of Lady Lazarus reveals an existence that is undeniably tragic but relentlessly tenacious. Even in her life, Plath was well aware of the effect her confessional poetry had on her legacy, as "Lady Lazarus" shows when she speaks of a "burden/a very great burden" for having shared part of yourself so deeply personal (Plath 61). ). “Lady Lazarus,” one of Plath's best-known poems, is an effort to regain control of her image and rebel against the common understanding that her existence is nothing more than a tragic monstrosity. Plath creates the incongruous character of Lady Lazarus in order to illustrate her life as different forms of exercise of power and their mutual effects on the oppressed, probably in the hope that by regaining possession of her power, she will regain control of her power. life.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayThe main incongruous element of the first part of “Lady Lazarus” is not just the ambiguous existence of the narrator, somewhere between life and death, but also his apparent feeling of pride in having accomplished it. At the beginning of the poem, Lady Lazarus is in charge. Her voice begins proud and boastful, demanding praise for her success, proclaiming that once again, she has succeeded. As becomes evident later in the poem, this is a suicide, or something similar. Lady Lazarus sarcastically jokes with the reader, saying "O my enemy/Do I terrify?" (10-11). Since she retains the appearance of a living skeleton, of course she terrifies. Additionally, she is proud to show off her body, including “the nose, the hollows of the eyes, the set of teeth” (Plath 13). She challenges her enemy, or those who have made her so, to revel in the horror of their own creation so that 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 humorous, is the Bible verse from which “O my enemy” is taken. borrowed (10). In Micah 7:8, one of the Israelites says, “Rejoice not, O my enemy. Even though I fall, I will rise again” (The Bible, Micah 7:8). This explicitly Jewish statement from the Old Testament curiously juxtaposes, in a way that can only be considered dark humor, with Holocaust imagery. Lady Lazarus draws a connection between herself and the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, describing herself as "a kind of miraclewalking, my skin shiny like a Nazi lampshade/my right foot/a paperweight/my face a fine, featureless linen/a Jewish linen.” (4-9). As the Jewish people die in one of the most horrific genocides in world history, Lady Lazarus uses their religious text to describe her own return to power. Although the inclusion of the Bible can be interpreted as a sign of hope, even as a promise of rebirth, the incongruity between the despair of the Holocaust and the hope of the Old Testament's history leaves it intentionally ambiguous the success of Lady Lazarus' efforts to regain control. The poem becomes even more incongruous when Plath shifts perspective to show what Lady Lazarus looks like when she is not a skeleton, describing her as "a smiling woman/I am only thirty" (19-20) . Despite our modern understanding that even young and beautiful people can be crippled by mental illness, the juxtaposition of internal reality with external reality does not add up. Even more incongruous is Lady Lazarus' frank observation of 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 delight in her talent for dying and regenerating, or at least finds it entertaining, which is particularly evident in the extreme mismatch between the rotting corpse she internally considers herself to be and the smiling woman she is. 'she seems to be. Her perpetual death and resurrection is almost caricatured in that she seems to crave death, but is unable to achieve it. The first power switch comes when Plath depicts Lady Lazarus undressed in a gruesome striptease. Imagine the power dynamic of a traditional striptease, in which a sensual and beautiful woman removes her clothes provocatively in front of a captive audience. Since this is a performance, the stripper holds all the power. The incongruity between a traditional striptease and Lady Lazarus' version is obvious. A striptease is a demonstration of the female body in all its sexual splendor desired by men. Plath breaks this scenario by replacing the seductive woman with a rotting skeleton that regrows her flesh. Since Lady Lazarus does not undress, but rather is unwrapped "hands and feet" (28), the power she would normally have as a performer is transferred to those unwrapping her and the "peanut-munching crowd" (26). Even if the humor is grotesque, the fact remains that Plath compares a suicide attempt to a sexual display, making death erotic. It is also important to note that this disturbing performance is no less sexual in nature, as the crowd "joins to see" (27) her reveal her suicide scars with the same perverse fascination as a striptease. The striptease highlights the inability of Lady Lazarus, and even Plath, to choose how they present themselves as women struggling with suicide. No matter what else they can offer, most people will only see suicide attempts. Many lines in this section of “Lady Lazarus” indict 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 control of dying and coming back to life. Not only is it her livelihood, but it's everything she seems to have complete control over. Neither “my enemy” nor the peanut-crunching crowd can limit his actual ability to die and resurrect. Plath presents this idea in these lines: “Dying / Is an art, like everything else. /I do it exceptionally well” (45). There are some notable humorous aspects to these lines. On the one hand, the enjambment after the line “To die” is in itself incongruous, since it is followed by the phrase “Is an art” (43-44). This idea of ​​dying as an art form elevates Lady Lazarus' work before collapsing in the next sentence, "like everything else" (44). His admission that everything is an art produces a flattening effect. If everything is art, that means things like getting to work, clipping your nails, and sorting recycling are also 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 feel anything. She puts it dryly when she explains, “I do it to make it seem like hell./I do it to make it seem real” (46-47). The persistent anaphora of these two lines indicates the heart of this section of the poem: "I do it to make it feel." The poem's second power switch offers the reader a brief glimpse into Lady Lazarus' existence as a merchant simulator of life and death under the ownership of "Herr Doctor/Herr Enemy" (65-66). Although Lady Lazarus is still a work of art in this part of the poem, she is no longer her own work of art. She explicitly states: “I am your opus/I am your value” (67-68). Once again, Plath shifts into the realm of Holocaust metaphors, addressing “my enemy,” the one who owns and controls her, as Herr Doktor. The German spelling of Doktor is a clear allusion to Holocaust doctors like Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who conducted horrific experiments on Jewish children (United 1). Yet even though she is dehumanized, commodified, and exposed by Herr Doktor, Lady Lazarus retains her boldly sarcastic voice, which is a way of reclaiming her body and her life. With the cry of “A miracle!” » upon her resurrection, Lady Lazarus admits: “It knocks me out” (55), as if she herself were overcome with laughter at the nature of her existence. The third and final power switch occurs at the lines “Ash, ash — /You poke and stir” (73), evidenced by a return of Holocaust imagery and a shift in point of view. Lady Lazarus now looks at the crematorium where Jewish bodies are cremated and imagines herself being burned. Rather than people looking at her, as is the case with the crowd munching peanuts, she looks at them, as if from beyond the grave. She describes the scene by saying: “Flesh, bones, there is nothing there/A cake of soap,/A wedding ring,/A gold trim” (75-78). Despite his claim that there is nothing to see, these everyday objects are the last evidence of the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust. The incongruity is blatant. There is nothing trivial about these things, and the darkest thing yet 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. At this point, Lady Lazarus' former boastful voice changes menacingly into a warning to God and Lucifer, probably also referring to Herr Doktor. In the lines "Herr God, Herr Lucifer/Beware/Beware" (79-81), she implies that she is a more powerful being than any deity. She will be resurrected, but unlike the biblical Lazarus, she does not need Jesus to resurrect her. The audience's rejection is clear when we look at the difference in language between the biblical text in which Lazarus is brought back to life by Jesus (John 12:1-41) and Plath's poem where Lady Lazarus "rises up" of his own free will. Here, as Lady Lazarus rises like a regenerated phoenix,.