Draft of Essay #2

Victoria Adams
Cline
ENG 102
16 September 2011

Mysterious Woman

Many poems have caught my attention, but "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath had me puzzled. When reading poems I like to figure out who the speaker is and what is their motive. The speaker gave some of their self away "And I a smiling woman/Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman" (Plath lines 16 and 31). There is at least a foundation; it’s a female voice. After figuring out the voice, now can I do my investigative work. Who is the speaker? She is haughty gold.

In the beginning of the poem you can’t quite see she is gold but she slowly give hints of her identity. Her whole idea is to keep you in suspense before she reveals herself. The speaker gives some of her features "my skin/Bright as a Nazi lampshade" (Plath lines 4-5). Everyone knows gold is bright and the color of its name. Further, she continues "My right foot/A paperweight" (Plath lines 6-7). How heavy is gold? As is a paperweight; gold too is heavy. Ms. Gold is not only slowly revealing herself, but she reveals the pride in her glory. She boasts to her enemy "O my enemy/Do I terrify," (Plath lines 11-12), the one she accuses of her repetitive death.

You may ask, "How does gold die and come back to life?" She herself states "And like the cat I have nine time to die" (Plath line 21). Gold goes through a refining process to become all the more precious. Being placed in a fiery furnace and hammered down and yet still be the same piece of gold, yet more valuable than before as she states "Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman" (Plath line 34). If you have never seen this process, you are missing a site to see. Even the speaker herself tells you about all the attraction she gets in this process "The peanut-crunching crowd/ Shoves in to see/ Them unwrap me hand and food" (Plath lines 26-28).

In the refining process of gold, after it has been in the fire and beaten a little here and there, it is also placed in cold water so that the impurities can be taken off. The speaker puts this process in such a thought-provoking manner by saying "And picks the worms off me like sticky pearls" (Plath line 42). Without having to think, her prideful self becomes more apparent when she speaks of her dying and coming back to life. Ms. Gold starts in that dying "Is an art, like everything else" (Plath line 44). She is forward in her speaking and even goes on to say "I do it exceptionally well/ I do it so it feels like hell" (Plath lines 45-46). She is letting the reader know the obvious heat that is involved in her initial dying when placed in the furnace of fire which in her case is "easy enough to do it in a cell" (Plath line 49).

The speaker reiterates later the fact that she is the same after dying and coming back to life "Comeback in broad day/ To the same place, the same face, the same brute" (Plath lines 52-53). As you continue to read the poem, the speaker begins to give you a repeated clue of her by saying "There is a charge" (Plath line 57). A charge for what you might ask? When gold is placed in the refining process, it over and over again becomes more purified and through it causes the gold to be costlier. She expands to say there is a charge for "a word or a touch/or a bit of blood/ or a piece of my hair or my clothes" (Plath lines 62-64). "A word or a touch" (Plath line 62) is referring to the charge or burden people make on gold for others to be in the care of whether by word or touch. The following line had said "Or a bit of blood" (Plath line 63), which is the liquefied form of gold. Whether gold is merely dust, a block or liquid; it has a high price.

As the poem nears to an end, the speaker unravels herself. She begins with "I am your opus" (Plath line 67) meaning your musical composition. Like the common saying, "It is music to my ears". Gold is a form of money and money talks. When a money hungry person hears that they can obtain more money, it is like music to their ears. The following line holds true in itself "I am your valuable" (Plath line 68). Nothing seems to be more valuable than gold, especially globally as a currency. Finally, the speaker says it plainly "The pure gold baby" (Plath line 69). She basically says here I am "The pure gold" (Plath line 69).

Tracing back to the gold refining process, she remarks:
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash-----
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----- (Plath lines 70-75).
When through the fire to become the purest of all gold, it melts. The goldsmith will turn the gold in the fire and allow more impurities to come to the surface to be burnt. "Ash, ash/ You poke and stir" (Plath lines 73-74) is when the goldsmith takes the gold out of the fire with the ash of the impurities and submerges it in water; pokes at the gold to rid of the filths. When gold, in its finest of 24 karats, there would be no more impurities for the goldsmith to purge out and therefore "Flesh, bone, there is nothing there" (Plath line 75); no more to scrape off.

So, is the speaker of "Lady Lazarus" truly gold? Undoubtedly, the speaker has to be gold. In the last 9 lines of the poem she really sums up that she in fact is gold. The forms that gold can take and the many uses it serves is shown "A cake of soap/ A wedding ring/ A gold filling" (Plath lines 76-78). To further clarify the statement "A cake of soap" (Plath line 76); is only referring to a gold bar like a bar of soap. The speaker yet again goes back to the refining process in the fire and says "Out of the ash/ I rise with my red hair" (Plath lines 82-83). Out of the fire and ash, the impurities around the gold are fiery red. The last and most truthful statement in this poem says "And I eat men like air" (Plath line 84). The speaker knows her ability to eat men. This consummation of men is not physical, where the gold literally eats up humans, but rather gold being money can cause greed and eventually overtake a man by the desires he has over money; gold.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Works Cited

Plath, Sylvia. "Lady Lazarus." Poetry Foundation. 1981. 16 September 2011. Web.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178961.