Lady Lazarus

While reading Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, I found myself drawn to the sorrowful tone of the speaker. My initial reaction was that this speaker was a Holocaust survivor or remorseful perpetrator,  but as the poem went on I noticed the reference to Jewish skin on line "A paperweight, My featureless, fine Jew linen" (line 7-9, Plath). The speaker refers to herself as not only of Jewish decent but in a tone that is self-effacing. Later in the poem the speaker becomes almost frantically seeking absolution, taunting the audience with her continued efforts at death. Accidentally near death, an attempted suicide, but never does the speaker speak of her pain or cause for craving death. "So, so Herr Doktor. So, Herr enemy." (Plath) Again, the speaker taunts the audience and we learn that she is speaking to those who would try to deter her death, or stall it. The speaker again makes reference to the Holocaust when she alludes to gold babies, gold teeth being removed. The imagery of train stations at Auschwitz comes to mind and piles of Jewish possessions and valuables fill my subconcious. The helplessness of those at the mercy of Nazi Germany. This speaker must feel it impossible to live as herself but makes reference in the closing stanza of rebirth or rising again to defeat her foes. The tones of the poem change as the speaker changes from desperation of her current state to boasting about her final suppression of those who would keep her from  her goal. The deathly allusion to Nazi's and the Holocaust are a paradoxical theme towards overpowering those "doctors" who are keeping her alive and she wishes to control her own destiny. In all I felt chilled by the analogies made by the writer but see the need to make the poignant declaration of Suicide seem like a reprieve from a life not worth living.