The Holocaust is one of the most devastating and incomprehensible events in human memory. The systematic murder of millions of civilians and the attempted erasure of their culture defies logic and exists outside the realm of everyday understanding. Words associated with the Holocaust or the dropping of the atomic bomb automatically invoke a visceral frame of reference for anyone informed about the atrocities of World War II. Sylvia Plath's use of Holocaust imagery as a lexicon in her poetry compares her struggles with power and her suffering to the horror of mass genocide. By using such alarming language in her poetry, Plath's writings arouse disturbing feelings of horror and confusion in the reader, regardless of the overall subject. By associating her suffering with World War II, Plath elevates her experiences to a level of common understanding. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Although images of World War II are accessible to many readers, Plath's identification with the victims of the war, particularly the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, calls into question the ethics of such use. Some readers feel that Plath's appropriation of victims' experiences is morally wrong and inappropriate for her medium. Critic George Steiner asked, "Does any writer, any human being other than a true survivor, have the right to don this deadly weapon?" in a collective awareness of the atrocities committed by the Nazis. In the context of Plath's concise and tense poetry, controversial language fits the goal of immediately communicating evil, suffering, and victimhood. In “Daddy,” Plath writes: “I began to talk like a Jew./I think I might just be Jewish.” » She uses the term "Jew" to refer to someone without a voice, but the meaning intensifies in the socio-historical context of the Holocaust. Robert Boyers wrote that its language "represents not a political judgment but a commitment to particular and timely categories that are functional in the poem alone." They are acceptable and functional because the poet needs to see his suffering as emblematic of a more widespread affliction and because he is able to draw on a wealth of concrete details...capable of releasing immense rage and pity …”[ii] Boyers argues that Plath's work Language is an attempt to connect to the global outrage over the events of the Holocaust, and that it is acceptable because the poetry does not necessarily parallel the real world. In "Lady Lazarus", Plath references her previous suicide attempts and makes associations between her body and the Holocaust. By associating negative and evil images with her own body, “A kind of walking miracle, my skin / Shining like a Nazi lampshade,” Plath expresses self-loathing and a desire for destruction. In the next stanza, however, she refers to "My face is fine linen and without Jewish features." reinforces her view of herself as an anonymous victim. She develops the image of the empty victim by writing “Ashes, ashes-/ You prick and stir./ Flesh, bones, there is nothing there--/ A cake of soap,/ A wedding ring,/ A gold fill. » The violence of being burned and being valued solely for one's possessions are even more extreme images associated with concentration camp prisoners. Plath addresses the serious subject of suicide, and her use of Holocaust imagery is appropriate because it expresses the depth of a despair that is difficult to enumeratefor those who have not suffered from extreme mental illness. The stanzas of “Lady Lazarus” are only three lines long and are written in short, choppy sentences. Plath writes in the first person to explain her experiences with suicide. “Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well./I do it to make it seem like hell./I do it to make it seem real.” The direct, unflinching language shocks the reader, and is even more uncomfortable when he is called a Nazi doctor. “So, so Herr Doktor./So, Herr Enemy./I am your opus.” This assignment of identity forces the reader to participate in Plath's despair. His despair is no ordinary despair; it is linked to the horror associated only with the Holocaust and is therefore placed on a higher plane of suffering in the reader's mind. Al Strangeways argues that "…readers are meant to feel uncomfortable with the suprapersonal, mythic depiction of Jewish suffering, feeling somehow implicated…in the voyeurism that such assimilation of the Holocaust.” disturb and involve the reader in their suffering. Plath connects her suffering to the Holocaust as a way to make the reader uncomfortable in the same way that the historical events of the Holocaust make people uneasy. The dissolution of boundaries between personal life and historical events is particularly present in Plath's poem "Daddy." ". Plath oscillates between competing visions of adoration and fear of a patriarchal figure, using Nazi imagery to describe him, such as "And your neat mustache/And your Aryan eye, bright blue." The overall tone is violent and unstable, as if the poem itself (or Plath) could collapse at any moment. The speaker not only desires to kill the father, “Daddy, I had to kill you./You died before I had time…” and “There’s something at stake in your big black heart,” but she also refers to her own suicidal impulses. when she declares: “At twenty, I tried to die/And come back, come back, come back to you.” » The violent images are an expression of her mental illness, but by associating the father figure with a Nazi, the depth of the speaker's anger seems justified to the reader. Boyers reiterates that Plath's identification with the Jewish victim is justified, stating: "In 'Dad,' the poet feels that common language is simply inadequate for any reasonable communication of his needs. »ii Plath required the appropriation of Holocaust imagery in order to fully convey her experiences. The paradox of the father figure highlights a feeling of confusion that permeates the poem. The speaker desires to reconnect with the father, “I prayed to get you back,” and searches for his ancestral roots. Unable to do so, the speaker writes: "I made a model of you,/ A man in black with a Meinkampf look/ And a love of the stand and the screw/ And I said yes, I do." » The speaker couldn't reach the unattainable daddy and so married the most similar man she could find. However, the speaker retains an intense hatred towards the father figure, comparing him to a fascist, a devil, and a vampire. The resulting image of Dad, someone who is supposed to be a loving parent, is contradictory and uncomfortable. Plath has a hard time defining Dad or her “role model,” just as people don’t understand how an event like the Holocaust could have happened. Plath's expressed confusion: “Tongue stuck in my jaw./ It's stuck in a barbed wire trap./ Ich, ich, ich, ich,/ I could barely speak./ I thought all Germans , It Was You” is similar to the confusion surrounding the Holocaust and the inability of writers to put such an atrocity into words. In “Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy.