How Sylvia Plath Utilizes Lady Lazarus In Reference To The Bible

The professor poets were among the first to use allusions in their writings, an allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, historical event, mythological character or religious work. It does not describe in detail the person or thing to which it refers. The writer expects the reader to possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its reference while reading the poem. Some of these writers used references from the Bible and some used references from Mythology to gain the attention of the reader.

I have chosen to focus on the Bible for the authors use of allusion to help their work find a connection with what they are writing and trying to accomplish. The bible talks about the history and religion of the people of Israel. There are 39 books written, authors of these books are unknown, and each book possesses a unique tone, style, and message.

Individually, they include stories, laws, and sayings that are intended to function as models of religious and ethical conduct.

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Together—through hundreds of characters and detailed events—they represent a unified narrative about God and his attempt to relate to humankind by relating to a specific group of people.

This is important to the beats period of writing. The “Beats” writers started as a group with the intent of their work to influence American culture and politics. While the subject matter of the works of the Beat writers is what would most be rejected from the norms of society, as they would talk about drugs, sex and exploration.

The “Beats” started in New York City by Jack Kerouac and was joined by fellow artists. Kerouac had originally met some of the artists while attending school at Columbia University. Their explorations would take them to San Francisco.

In Part I of Allen Ginsberg Howl, Ginsberg references “angelheaded hipsters” which represents that these men could be wearing halos. Ginsberg also talks about the resurrection of Christ, in “and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow”.

In Part II of Allen Ginsberg Howl he starts with “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch.” Moloch was the Canaanite fire god, whose worship was marked by parents’ burning their children to please the gods. Moloch is described as the destroyer and is devouring the present. Moloch represents authority, on how each individual was allowed to live, noted by “Moloch the heavy judger of men!”.

Ginsberg was strongly against capitalism. He grew up with a communist mother, and found the government having complete control of the country detrimental to society. Subsequently, he did not like capitalism because, once again, much of the power was out of the hands of the people. He reiterates this when he says Moloch is “the crossbones soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows!” Which seems to say Moloch is the power of the government or the private organizations and its control over the people. He is, on one hand, calling Congress an actual place of sorrows and on the other, saying Congress focuses solely on the peoples’ sorrows and failure to progress, rather than their hopes and needs.

In Footnote to Howl, Ginsberg cites “Holy!” multiple times and begins to name all the things that are holy. He calls his friends by name, as being holy. In the last line “Holy time in eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!” It helps to understand that what started in Howl as devastation and destruction is now at an end with salvation.

. When she attempts her first suicide at age 10. In the bible it references Lazarus and Bethany being raised by the dead by Jesus 3 days after their death. The title referencing Lazarus puts us to the mindset of the portion of the bible and the death of Lazarus and him being brought back to life. However, for Sylvia she ends up successfully ending her life, unlike Lazarus who could provide victory over death. Sylvia references the cave in her poem. “Soon, soon the flesh the grave ate will be At home on me” She even writes “Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware.” Sylvia Plath in Lady Lazarus the last line “out of the ash I rise with my red hair and I eat men like air” can be interpreted her rising up like the Phoenix. In the history, the phoenix 'could symbolize renewal in general as well as the sun, time, the empire, metempsychosis, consecration, resurrection, life in the heavenly Paradise, Christ, Mary, virginity, the exceptional man, and certain aspects of Christian life'.

Sylvia’s poem Daddy can be used as another example. In line 14 “I used to pray to recover you” shows that Sylvia used to pray and believe in god. In the beginning of her poem expressing how her father died and the loss of his foot and his death and how she feels far away from her father. Even the Bible tells the story of an entire people whose 'father' is far away. Through her journey to understand about her father and his roots, she starts to compare herself to being Jewish, trying to learn his language because she wants to talk to him. Her tone changes when she compares her father to god. “I have always been scared of you, with Luftwaffe, your gobbledygook. And your neat mustache and your Aryan eye, bright blue, Panzer-man, panzer-man, O you – Not god but a swastika”. The significance of this poem is she initially idolized her dad, as a God.

I am also going to add mythology into this essay as it was really my first choice but had a hard time trying to grab the concept of mythology use in this era. However, I did find a few references. In Allen Ginsberg A Supermarket in California, in the last line “Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?”. This is reference to the Greek Mythology, the river of Hades. Charon was the man who worked on the boat and ferried those of the dead to Hades.

After reading more into mythology and biblical allusions, it changed in my eyes the meaning and the purpose of the poems. Especially with Sylvia Plath. Sylvia used both biblical and mythological allusion to show her pain and to express her feeling of man, as she had been hurt by two men in her life.