Defying the Patriarchy: Sylvia Plath’s Rebellion in Lady Lazarus and Tulips

To what extent does Plath reject patriarchal norms in her poems  Lady Lazarus and  Tulips?

Lady Lazarus and Tulips are poems by American poet Syvia Plath, correspondingly written in 1962 and 1961, and interestingly they are sorted one after another in the collection of Ariel. 

Lady Lazarus consists of twenty-eight tercet stanzas, totalling 84 lines, whereas Tulips is composed of nine seven-line stanzas, totalling 63 lines. Both poems are told by a feminine point of view; nevertheless, the theme of Lady Lazarus talks about the speaker’s process of reincarnation or rebirth, while in contrast, the speaker in Tulips describes her own inside world through her hospitalized life by receiving tulips. Plath rejects patriarchal norms in both poems, but she creates similar and different imagery to show her attitude against the outside world.

Cloth

Plath creates cloth imagery to evoke a goose-bumps atmosphere in both poems. Lady Lazarus uses imagery of Jew linen as simile of the narrator’s face; moreover, “peel off the napkin” indicates the narrator’s previous death with covering napkin, and then stripping off the napkin shows her rebirth. Similarly, Tulips uses the pillow and the sheet-cuff, where the narrator’s head is in-between, along with indicating the narrator’s illness and isolation situation with the terrifying atmosphere by "forming an eye" as being stared by someone or the society. 

Isolation 

Plath likes to use enclosed space or objects to create speaker’s lonely and isolated emotion. The speaker in Lady Lazarus is firstly clumped by the shoving “crowd”, which forms an isolated environment; furthermore, the speaker tries to commit suicide in a “cell”. The former is the place where the speaker has reincarnated, whereas the latter is the place where she tries to go into death. 

On the other hand, Tulips evokes not only the enclosed space, but further isolation in the emotion state. First, the speaker is hospitalized and her head is between the pillow and the sheet-cuff, forming "an eye between two white lids". 

Furthermore, she mentions "a thirty-year-old cargo boat", a vector burdened with a lot of things. The boat is an isolated space and covered with many traumas and events, carrying her name, her address, or in other words, her identity. Moreover, Plath uses a river image to sink over the speaker's head, with the purpose of creating a nearly enclosed space for the speaker, demonstrating that the speaker wants to escape away the noise from the world. 

Additionally, the speaker of Tulips tells "it is winter here", contrasting with the tulips' colourfulness. As we have known winter can be considered as a lonely, cold symbol, and Plath further creates an isolated, quiet meaning into winter, since the speaker stays in the hospital. Plath also uses the contrast between tulips and winter to render more and more lonely, isolated feeling of the speaker. 

Finally, Plath uses speaker’s confession “I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses” to exhibit everything willing. Nevertheless, sacrificing something in routine with a weirdly positive attitude shows the speaker’s isolation and disassociation from the society. 

Outside world expectation

In both poems, outside world expectation can be divided into three categories: family expectation, societal expectation and patriarchal symbol. 

In Lady Lazarus, Plath mentions the speaker was called by “them”, implying Plath’s self-experience, her mother and brother tried to save her and pull her out from the basement. On the other hand, in Tulips, Plath talks about another object but still her family member —— her husband, Ted Hughes. She creates a metaphor of her husband as vivid tulips, which eat the speaker’s oxygen, implying her talent and work were shaded by her husband’s limelight. 

The poem theme of Lady Lazarus is about the death journey and reincarnation, but we still can spot Plath’s attitude against the society. The crowd represents as the society. After the speaker is stared at and revealed everything toward the crowd, she mocks them with an ironic sentence: “I do it (dying) exceptionally well” against the society expecting her as a mother, a wife, and a (weak) female creator. 

Furthermore, Plath emphasizes more the sense of being pried on in Tulips. At the beginning with the scene of tulips and winter, the speaker thinks that she is “nobody” and has “nothing to do with explosions”, giving the feeling that she is watched, and it makes her powerless and uncomfortable. There are some details of tulips which always accompany the speaker, in other words, tulips are like a nightmare following the speaker and giving her pressure. For example, “the tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me” and “a dozen red lead sinkers round my neck”, tulips are indicated as not only pressure from competition with her husband, but also watched pressure from society. That is why the speaker mentions “Nobody watched me before, now I am watched”, along with the description of tulips turning toward her. 

Beside family expectation and societal expectation which bothers the speakers in both poems, the patriarchal values are also like a cage to the speakers. When the speaker of Lady Lazarus is reborn from ash, flesh, and bone, there is no “wedding ring”, which clarifies that the speaker doesn’t want to be bound by “marriage” after her reincarnation. It seems that Plath speaks through the speaker to show her attitude toward marriage. The speaker of Tulips shows her desires to escape the expectation of being a mother over and above being a wife. The speaker said she has lost herself, and she is “sick of baggage”, and the scene turns to the things in her baggage, including the family photo displaying with her husband’s and her child’s smile. Therefore, both speakers do not want to accept the patriarchal value.

Exposure and insecurity

In addition to the expectation and value from the outside world, the poems further exhibit the feeling of exposure and insecurity when spotting under the expectation. 

The speaker of Lady Lazarus is able to come back from the death and each body part, such as “skin and bone”, is exposed toward and watched by the “crowd” or society. If there is recovery, then the scar exists. “For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge” —— ironically, the speaker claims everything including her scars are exhibited in front of the public. It explains not only the exposure but also the insecurity from Plath, and further we can find out that Plath feels insecure to show her work or something exposing her thoughts.

Similar to Tulips, the speaker has undergone surgery and been exposed, such as the hospital staff “swabbed me clear of my loving association” and “And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons”. Body parts consist of the speaker or Plath, as a result when a part of her is exposed, such as her work, then insecurity comes up. Moreover, there are many “eyes” imagery or elements in Tulips, demonstrating that the speaker attracts the attention from the outside world, but it is accompanied by exposition, non- privacy, and insecurity. 

Active agency vs Passive agency

Although both poems have displayed similar issues in details, the speaker types are very different. 

The speaker of Lady Lazarus always has anger or disdain toward the crowd or society even though she is spotted by many eyes. She is an active agent, in the final stanza “I rise with my red hair”, “And I eat men like air”, she uses “rise” and “eat men” to indicating she rejects patriarchy as she is re-born. However, the speaker of Tulips is passive and fragile, she is absorbed by “tulips”, “water”, or her fear of “tulips”. The speaker’s existence is vanished little by little until the end —— a kind of self-erasure. Therefore, the speaker of Tulips is powerless against the outside voice, compared to the speaker of Lady Lazarus. 

Color

Both poems have different colors. The atmosphere of Lady Lazarus is quite creepy, building a dark and grey brown environment with “grave cave”, “Nazi lampshade”, “napkin (covering on the speaker)” and “crowd” to imply that the scene probably is located underground or a dungeon with skin and flash colors “flash and bone”, “ash”, and “eyes”. Moreover, there is some metal color, such as gold or silver, “pure gold baby”, “a gold filling” and “a wedding ring”, somehow those objects or descriptions are like the shining things within the black space. Another attractive color is red, “blood” and “red hair” show the source of vitality and the power when the speaker reincarnates. 

Even though in Tulips there is also “red” color, the redness from tulips doesn’t mean the speaker’s vitality or power, it means conversely the influence from the outside world. Additionally, unlike many colors in Lady Lazarus, Tulips always fills with white or non-color —— “winter”, “white walls” and “white lids”. The speaker is hospitalized, and the only color is from tulips, bright red. Compared to the vibrant brightness, the speaker’s existence is weathered in white. 

Lady Lazurus and Tulips have similar displays of cloth imagery, isolation, speakers under exposure and their insecurity, and how the speaker tries to defend outside world expectation and value. They also have differences in the type of agency and in the colors of environmental atmosphere.