Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Trauma of Mental Illness

As a poem concerned with suicidal ideation, “Lady Lazarus” inevitably invokes the theme of mental illness. That said, at no point in the poem does the speaker directly address the matter of mental illness. What the reader finds, instead, are subtle signs related to mental illness’s traumatic effects on the speaker’s mind. One aspect of the poem that may be interpreted as a sign of the speaker’s mental illness is the dark humor that occasionally emerges from her ironic tone. For example, in the opening lines (lines 1–3) the speaker claims:

     I have done it again.
     One year in every ten
     I manage it—— 

Here, the speaker makes a grim joke about her inability to succeed in killing herself. Although she has successfully managed to try to commit suicide, she has yet to manage a successful attempt, despite having had three opportunities. Regardless of the speaker’s dark humor, her words are clearly laced with profound anguish at her continued survival. Another aspect of the poem that indicates mental instability is the sheer intensity of the speaker’s emotional state. The intensity of her trauma is so great that she feels justified in comparing her suffering to that of the Jews in the Holocaust. Even though this is surely an exaggeration, her mental illness leads her to believe it.

The Toxicity of Patriarchy

“Lady Lazarus” may be centered on a mentally ill woman, but the poem is less concerned with her illness than it is with the toxic effects of patriarchy, which greatly exacerbate her trauma. The male figure who most obviously exacerbates the speaker’s pain is the doctor who saved her life after her most recent suicide attempt. She reserves a special hatred for this man, whom she ironically addresses in German—“Herr Doktor” (line 65)—to suggest a comparison between his cruelty and that of doctors who worked with the Nazis. The reason the speaker detests the doctor is that he has the power to thwart her agency. By resurrecting her from the dead, as it were, the doctor has negated her wish to die. The point here is less about the speaker’s desire to commit suicide, and more about her desire to have autonomy over her actions. The doctor has arrested her autonomy, such that her feelings of depression develop into a righteous rage. The speaker directs this rage against all representatives of the patriarchy, which she invokes through a sort of Unholy Trinity consisting of “Herr God, Herr Lucifer” (line 79), and, of course, “Herr Doktor.”

The Torment of Objectification

The speaker of “Lady Lazarus” despises men like her doctor, in part because they obstruct her agency, but also because they objectify and dehumanize her. The poem’s central conceit is that the speaker is a “lady” version of Lazarus, a man who was miraculously restored to life after having been dead and buried for days. Just as Lazarus’s resurrection was recorded in the Bible, the speaker’s miraculous recovery must somehow be made public. The speaker imagines herself being wrapped in bandages. As these bandages are slowly unwrapped to reveal her restored body, the speaker likens herself to a woman forced to perform an erotic “strip tease” (line 29). The speaker expresses the torment of this experience through her disdain of “the peanut-crunching crowd” (line 26) that gathers around to enjoy the spectacle. The speaker again emphasizes her objectification when she likens herself to a saint whose body has become a holy relic that pilgrims pay to see and touch. Despite there being “a very large charge” (line 61) to examine her scars or take some blood or a piece of hair, the imaginary pilgrims’ demand for body parts has a denigrating effect on the speaker’s psyche.