Practice 2
Poetry
Sylvia Plath — 'Lady Lazarus' (Full Poem, Selected Stanzas)
Read the following stanzas from the poem and then answer the questions below.
SELECTED STANZAS FROM 'LADY LAZARUS' BY SYLVIA PLATH
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
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.
Guiding Question for Text
How does Plath use imagery, allusion and poetic form to present the speaker's relationship with death and identity?
Questions — Text (Answer ALL four questions)
- Analyse how Plath uses imagery from two or more different sources (e.g. religious, historical, domestic) to create meaning in these stanzas. What is the cumulative effect on the reader?
- Examine the tone of the speaker in 'Lady Lazarus'. How does it shift across the selected stanzas, and what does this reveal about the speaker's sense of identity?
- Discuss the significance of the allusions to Lazarus, the Holocaust, and the phoenix in the poem. How do these references shape the poem's themes?
- Comment on Plath's use of poetic form and structure — including line breaks, stanza length, and free verse — and how these formal choices reinforce the poem's emotional and thematic impact.