Module A Flashcards
LL Introduction
Plath’s dramatic monologue “Lady Lazarus” details a crescendo of the persona’s tormented experiences culminating in a tumultuous reincarnation as the ruthless heroine Lilith who devours the oppressive men in her life. Additionally, she uses theatrics to highlight the performative but detached nature of her experience under the public eye, alluding to her victimhood of the patriarchal society.
Fulbright Introduction
Hughes’ “Fulbright Scholar” is addressed to Plath and presents an uncertain recount of Hughes’ supposed first encounter with a photograph of her. As he imagines what he would’ve seen in this photo, he relates her smiling appearance to the turmoil within that he learned in hindsight. Ultimately the poem implies that Plath’s image had been deceiving and Hughes extenuates the blame for her suicide by claiming his ignorance.
DADDY Introduction
In “Daddy”, Plath’s charged confessional poem, she addresses her father and Hughes both of whom she perceived as oppressive patriarchal figures in her life. She seeks to overcome the anguished caused by these figures, first her father’s premature death and then her husband’s infidelity. Ultimatly, she figuratively kills her father and Hughes who have morphed together into “Daddy” and therefore overcoming their subjugation and the anguish they have caused .
The Shot - Introduction
In “The Shot”, Hughes deflects the blame for the downfall of their marriage to Otto, Plath’s father. Portraying Plath as a bullet fired from Otto’s gun, Hughes positions himself as the unknowing victim in the way of her undeflectable and destructive path to her real target, the god “Daddy”. In the poem, Hughes establishes his victimhood in the situation and inability to resolve Plath’s issues that ultimately lead to her demise.
Plath includes Hughes in her poem, opening up the conversation whilst simultaneously withdrawing herself.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.
Repetition of Daddy twice which is a reference to the two people she mentions in this poem.
Use of derogatory language of “bastard” she conveys his existence as illegitimate.
Poet knows that this persona is being immature and childish, claims can be far-fetched.
Reflective of her young age when her father died – links in with her Electra complex which she acknowledges plays a role in her life.
USES WORDS LIKE: Do Shoe Achoo Two You Gobbledydoo
Diction reminds us of a child
In addition to use of repetition which adds to this image of a childlike temper tantrum.
Rhyme sound – “oo” evokes the sensation of listening to a child
Plath associates her father and Hughes with the colour black to negatively connote their impact on her life. Throughout her poems, she is always seeking the reincarnation which brings new life and purity which is associated with the colour white, which contrasts with black.
INSTANCES OF BLACK: Black shoe So black no sky could squeak through. A man in black The black telephone [which she communicated with her dad/husband with]
Colour imagery, using black to describe the men in her life. Black is an oppressive, ominous, severe and consuming colour; it also has connotations of death or deterioration.
She directly references Hughes through her factual representation of 7 years that she was together with him.
If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
//
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
Supernatural references which she uses to establish Hughes as a parasite but one that still welds power over her (a supernatural being with many mystical powers)
She has either psychologically “killed” her father’s influence or figuratively “killed” Hughes by separating from him.
Metaphorically describes her father as heavy and oppressive objects in order to create the sense that she is being weighed down
“Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
… Big as a Frisco seal”
Swastika is a symbolism of Nazism, she repaints her “daddy” to be the embodiment of evil, Germanic authority.
“Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through”
Plath conflates her pain with a historical allusion to the Holocaust and suffering of the Jewish population. She amplifies her pain and suffering with the repetition of “a Jew” and accumulative listing of concentration camps.
Chuffing me off like a Jew
a Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen
Reference to Nazi symbolism and allusions to a wedding.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And I said I do, I do.
Repetition of “god” or “gods” which appears 6 times in the first stanza insinuates Plath’s overemphasis on finding a god and her obsession.
Extended metaphor of gun and bullet
Your worship needed a god. Where it lacked one, it found one. Ordinary jocks became gods – Deified by your infatuation // It was a god-seeker. A god-finder.
Extended metaphor of Plath as “a high-velocity bullet”, implies the predetermined nature of Plath’s life.
Use of technical jargon which provides a detached and highly detailed description of the bullet.
Your Daddy had been aiming you at God
When his death touched the trigger.
In that flash You saw your whole life. You ricocheted The length of your Alpha career With the fury Of a high-velocity bullet // Kinetic energy
Hughes uses this to construct a hysterical and the extremities of Plath’s emotions which caught him by surprise
But inside your sob-sodden Kleenex
And your Saturday night panics,
Contrast between her path through life as a hard and solid bullet juxtaposed with images of her breaking down
Hughes implies the impossibility of stopping the predetermined path that Plath was on.
He uses the supernatural reference to a witchdoctor to reinforce the impossibility of catching her, saving or stopping her flight path.
You were undeflected. You were gold-jacketed, solid silver, Nickel-tipped. Trajectory perfect // In my position, the right witchdoctor Might have caught you in flight with his bare hands,
Use of religious or supernatural imagery to describe the witchdoctor that is able to catch a bullet in flight with his bare hands.
- Hair also links in with the Veronica Lake bang, which he uses to imply her façade. [Fulbright Scholars]
- The scar links with LL
Under your hair done this way and that way,
//
Even the cheek-scar,
Where you seemed to have side-swiped concrete,
Served as a rifling groove
Links with LL where she describes the remains of her old self - a cake of soap, a wedding ring, and gold filling.
Vague as mist, I did not even know I had been hit, Or that you had gone clean through me – // I managed A wisp of your hair, your ring, your watch, your nightgown.
Use of accumulative listing of things that he managed to keep of Plath, indicates his surprised and unprepared for her departure. The symbolism of the ring is significant as it implies their marriage (which he does not directly address).
Religious imagery with implications of Hughes being the sacrificial offering on the altar. He also implies that the temple was built for Otto Plath.
Our room was red. A judgement chamber.
Shut casket for gems.
//
A throbbing cell. Aztec altar — temple.
Plath repositions herself as a victimised Jew, at the hands of the Nazis. She makes a grotesque but historically accurate reference to the Nazi lampshade, which the Nazis experimented to make with human skin.
She uses the Herr Doktor and Herr Enemy to
“my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade” // “My face, a featureless, fine Jew linen.” // So, so, Herr Doktor. So, Herr Enemy
The peach symbolises youth and the renewal of life. It can also have sexual connotations of love and
Contextualised to be during the Korean War (1950s) where fresh peaches were a luxury.
It was the first fresh peach I had ever tasted.
I could hardly believe how delicious.
The structure of just one stanza implies continual questioning, a personal internal monologue.
The entire poem is just one stanza
Questioning tone which sets an atmosphere of uncertainty for the poem
Where was it, the Strand?
He uses an antithesis to confuse the reader as well as convey his uncertain memory of Plath’s presence in the photograph
Then I forgot. Yet I remember
The picture: The Fulbright Scholars.
