Lady Lazarus

The speaker establishes the themes of death and resurrection in the title of the poem, referencing the biblical story of Lazarus. The speaker’s experiences with death throughout “Lady Lazarus” are not terrifying and unwanted; instead, resurrection is the most uncomfortable experience for the speaker. This reversal of expectations suggests a cynical attitude towards life when it is full of suffering and rage. The poem grapples with the psychological implications of resigning oneself to death, attempting to cause one own’s death and then surviving death and finding oneself living again. The speaker of the poem endures a psychic death, or a death of the spirit, repeatedly, and all of these deaths allude to the multiple suicide attempts of the poet.

The speaker never explicitly claims that she has attempted suicide, describing death instead as an art: “Dying / Is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well” (Lines 43-45). The speaker of the poem is the artist, and dying is her performance piece. The distance the speaker places between herself and the reality of her situation creates an uneasy tone as the reader must the speaker’s mindset to understand the poem. The speaker appears to knows that her mindset is terrifying, emphasizing at the end of the poem that Lady Lazarus is a fearsome creature who can kill and cannibalize men as easily as breathing: “And I eat men like air” (Line 87).