The Art of Dying

The central theme of “Lady Lazarus” is the act of dying — not death as a final state, but rather what the speaker terms the “art” of dying (44). Through her treatment of this theme, Plath destabilizes traditional notions of death as a tragic event to be resisted at all costs. By emphasizing the “art” of dying, Plath turns it into a feminist act that puts her in conflict with the men around her. She underlines the importance of the theme by giving “Dying” a line all to itself almost halfway through the poem, the only word accorded this treatment save for “Beware” in the penultimate tercet.

The neutral way in which Plath refers to dying throughout the poem challenges our understanding of dying as something tragic or momentous. She refers to dying as “it” twelve times throughout the poem, lending the concept a mundane...