Thursday, April 12, 2012
Balance between life and death in "Lady Lazarus"
The grim nature of "Lady Lazarus" tells the story of a women who seems to transcend the cycles of life and death. The author of the poem presents death as more of a temporary state as opposed to a permanent rest. Dying is refereed to an art form, something that can be perfected through repetition. The narrator of the poem's ability to come back to life as the same "identical women" allows for a supernatural state of being, where death comes and goes. We understand life to be the temporary state, once taken away we enter the perpetual state of death. The narrator breaks from this view, as her timeline includes multiple births and multiple deaths, neither of which is permanent. How would we understand life if this is how nature worked? Would we have the same value placed on the uncertainty of the now? The state of being for the narrator of "Lady Lazarus" would undoubtedly alter the importance we place on life. The balance we create to understand life is that once its gone, its not coming back. The perspective offered in "Lady Lazarus" throws off that old notion, affecting how place importance on each other and ourselves. Emotions would mean less when this balance is thrown off, as our sense of time would lose all meaning.
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I agree with what you said about "Lady Lazarus" expressing death as an act of expression, which can be perfected. I think this is especially evident in the line where she writes, "Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well." I think this poem really minimizes the finality of death. She seems to think that, like a cat, it is something she will be able to experience more than one time. I think the speaker of this poem is somewhat of a thrill seeker, looking to make her life more interesting. She writes, "and there is a charge, a very large charge for a word or a touch or a bit of blood."
ReplyDeleteDying as an art form is a very interesting topic to think about, especially when there is the possibility for resurrection. I agree with you that the notion of multiple deaths would throw some things off. However, I do not think that it would affect people’s emotions or sense of time. People would likely be more careless, but I think emotions would remain intact. Our sense of time would only begin to dwindle if we could resurrect more than the nine times as stated in the poem and live forever. I think what would be thrown off are people’s inhibitions. I believe that more people would begin committing crimes and violent acts because they would have no fear of dying.
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