Nathan's Reflection
The story of Lazarus comes from the Biblical story of a man dead for four days after which Jesus brings him back to life. This poem is a modified version of the Biblical story. In the first cinquine, Mrs. Lazarus demonstrates her initial grieving over her husband's death by using imagery such as ripping the cloth (line 2) and she "howled, shrieked and clawed till my hands bled." She is in intense agony over her husband's death. When she returns home, she describes her life without her husband as very lonely. She uses imagery such as "single cot" (line 6), "one empty glove" (line 7) to describe the emptiness she feels. She begins to go through her husband's possessions, including his shoes, to dispose of them. The poet uses aliteration, "dead, dead" and "going, going" to reinforce the points made and to add to the power of the words. Mrs. Lazarus eventually considers suicide, evidenced by describing a double knot tie around her neck. This poet describes the time period of the bereavement as months rather than days as in the Bible. Eventually the memory of her husband fades away as evidenced line 14 "going away from me." She only remembers a picture of him and no longer his face or presence. She continues by selecting metaphorical symbols of Lazarus and describing how they are vanishing. For example, she notes the "last hair on his head floated out from a book" (lines 17-18). When the will is read, Lazarus' death is recognized legally and the world has moved on. Lazarus becomes a part of her past, a "legend" (line 21). She steadies her arm on the arm of a schoolteacher, and it appears she is impressed by his strength and is tempted by another man. She states that she was faithful to her husband as long as he was in her memory, but it appears she may have taken up with another man. Then one evening, she is standing in the open air when the villagers run to her, shouting. Mrs. Lazarus can sense immediately on the faces of others that her husband is alive. However, rather than seeing her husband again and being overwhelmed with joy, she is shocked and disgusted by his stench and dishevelled appearance as he rises from the grave. Then she describes horror on Lazarus' face as he realizes he has been made a cuckcold and is out of his place and time.
The unexpected rising from the dead of Lazarus in this poem causes horror, pain and hardship rather than joy as one might imagine in the Biblical story. I get the feeling that both Mr. and Mrs. Lazarus suffer. Mrs. Lazarus has already gone through a terrible grieving process over her husband's death and she has moved on with her life. Mr. Lazarus rises to see how life has changed without him, and is shocked and appalled with the result. This poem makes me somewhat depressed as I don't like the images of people in pain and suffering. This poem is told from the female perspective but I wouldn't it is only for females. It appears to be more realistic about what would happen is someone were actually to rise from the grave. The changed circumstances of Mrs. Lazarus' life shows that time lost can't be regained and life has changed forever.
The unexpected rising from the dead of Lazarus in this poem causes horror, pain and hardship rather than joy as one might imagine in the Biblical story. I get the feeling that both Mr. and Mrs. Lazarus suffer. Mrs. Lazarus has already gone through a terrible grieving process over her husband's death and she has moved on with her life. Mr. Lazarus rises to see how life has changed without him, and is shocked and appalled with the result. This poem makes me somewhat depressed as I don't like the images of people in pain and suffering. This poem is told from the female perspective but I wouldn't it is only for females. It appears to be more realistic about what would happen is someone were actually to rise from the grave. The changed circumstances of Mrs. Lazarus' life shows that time lost can't be regained and life has changed forever.
Janelle's Reflection
Carol Ann Duffy's Mrs Lazarus is a reference to the biblical story of Lazarus through the eyes of the generated persona - Mrs Lazarus. The poem is organised to show the transition of Mrs Lazarus grieving process for the loss of her husband to moving on and accepting reality and then ending with her husband coming back to life.
The first three stanzas of the poem illustrates the pain and hardship Mrs Lazarus went through after the death of her husband. There are many negative connoted words such as 'wept', 'ripped', 'howled', 'shrieked' and 'clawed'. This personifies grief as Mrs Lazarus makes it seem like she is going through hell without her husband. In the second stanza, she tries to relive the memories of her husband in lines 8-9: "Stuffed dark suits into black bags, shuffled in a dead man's shoes". This shows that Mrs Lazarus has not accepted her husband's death. However, there is a shift in tone in the third stanza because now, Mrs Lazarus is longing to not feel grief anymore. The biblical story of Lazarus is edited in line 13: "by all those months" since in the real story, only four days passed.
In the fourth stanza, Lazarus is drifting away. The memories Mrs Lazarus had of him is "vanishing" (line 19). The only thing still connecting her to Lazarus is their wedding ring. The poet used the metaphor: "Till his name was no longer a certain spell for his face" 9 (line 16) and personification: "His scent from the house" (line 18) to imply that Lazarus' chance of living is gone.
In the fifth stanza, Mrs Lazarus is 're-born'. His death is finally accepted and Mrs Lazarus is moving on to a "schoolteacher" (line 22). However, she makes a reassuring statement by saying "But I was faithful for as long as it took" (line 24-25). Mrs Lazarus makes it prominent that she was faithful for him and that she was saddened by his death for a long period of time.
The sixth stanza depicts closure. It has a semantic field of nature with presence of words such as; 'field', air', 'moon' and 'sky'. This allows us to visualize that Mrs Lazarus is living her life once again, she is starting to appreciate her surroundings. In the last two stanzas of the poem, Lazarus is resurrected. Both - he and Mrs Lazarus - are overwhelmed and shocked. Mrs Lazarus did not know how to respond to his resurrection and Lazarus did not know how to respond to the fact that his wife has carried on with her life without him. The poem is left open-ended, there are no concrete details as to what is going to happen between the married couple - are they going to stay married or are they going to go their separate ways?
Carol Ann Duffy successfully utilised different poetic devices in order to capture the various stages of Mrs Lazarus grief and to convey her emotions to the viewers. Duffy created a strong female persona to be a model of what it means to be an independent woman. The poet empowers feminism through writing Mrs Lazarus from a female perspective because no female voice is heard in the bible.
The first three stanzas of the poem illustrates the pain and hardship Mrs Lazarus went through after the death of her husband. There are many negative connoted words such as 'wept', 'ripped', 'howled', 'shrieked' and 'clawed'. This personifies grief as Mrs Lazarus makes it seem like she is going through hell without her husband. In the second stanza, she tries to relive the memories of her husband in lines 8-9: "Stuffed dark suits into black bags, shuffled in a dead man's shoes". This shows that Mrs Lazarus has not accepted her husband's death. However, there is a shift in tone in the third stanza because now, Mrs Lazarus is longing to not feel grief anymore. The biblical story of Lazarus is edited in line 13: "by all those months" since in the real story, only four days passed.
In the fourth stanza, Lazarus is drifting away. The memories Mrs Lazarus had of him is "vanishing" (line 19). The only thing still connecting her to Lazarus is their wedding ring. The poet used the metaphor: "Till his name was no longer a certain spell for his face" 9 (line 16) and personification: "His scent from the house" (line 18) to imply that Lazarus' chance of living is gone.
In the fifth stanza, Mrs Lazarus is 're-born'. His death is finally accepted and Mrs Lazarus is moving on to a "schoolteacher" (line 22). However, she makes a reassuring statement by saying "But I was faithful for as long as it took" (line 24-25). Mrs Lazarus makes it prominent that she was faithful for him and that she was saddened by his death for a long period of time.
The sixth stanza depicts closure. It has a semantic field of nature with presence of words such as; 'field', air', 'moon' and 'sky'. This allows us to visualize that Mrs Lazarus is living her life once again, she is starting to appreciate her surroundings. In the last two stanzas of the poem, Lazarus is resurrected. Both - he and Mrs Lazarus - are overwhelmed and shocked. Mrs Lazarus did not know how to respond to his resurrection and Lazarus did not know how to respond to the fact that his wife has carried on with her life without him. The poem is left open-ended, there are no concrete details as to what is going to happen between the married couple - are they going to stay married or are they going to go their separate ways?
Carol Ann Duffy successfully utilised different poetic devices in order to capture the various stages of Mrs Lazarus grief and to convey her emotions to the viewers. Duffy created a strong female persona to be a model of what it means to be an independent woman. The poet empowers feminism through writing Mrs Lazarus from a female perspective because no female voice is heard in the bible.
Julia's Reflection
Mrs Lazarus is a refashioned poem of the bible story Lazarus, where Duffy creates a persona that was not mentioned in the bible story, the wife of Lazarus. She tweaked the setting in order to fully describe the perspective of the widow. Instead of the husband being dead for 4 days, Duffy says he's been dead for "months" (Line 13). As a result, she was able to outline the stages of grief that the widow suffered through and then use imagery and metaphors to describe the situation when the husband resurrected, and the implications for the widow. Duffy used the stylistic devices such as metaphors, imagery, onomatopoeia to create mood, describe the poetic speakers emotions and reactions and the general setting.
Some examples:
Duffy has used imagery to show the different stages of grief and describe the mood and atmosphere. She describes the action of the created persona at the very beginning of grief, where the speaker is angry and wants to relive her memories with the dead husband: "Stuffed dark suits into black bags, shuffled in dead man's shoes" (line 9-10). The next stage is indicated with another imagery, where the poetic voice says that "he was vanishing to the small zero held by the gold of my ring" (line 20), which indicates that she has accepted that her husband is dead, however has not fully overcome her grief. The last stage, closure, is shown by the imagery with nature, where the speaker "stand[s] that evening in the field, in a shawl of fine air, able to watch the edge of the moon..." (line 27). "I breathed his tench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud" (line 48) This verse is an example of sensory imagery, which is used to set the atmosphere and mood.
The poet uses metaphors to describe the persona's emotions and also different stages of grief. The moment when the speaker lets go of her husband, indicates that she has progressed from denial to acceptance is described by a metaphor: "the last hair on his head floated out from a book" (line 16-17).
Personally, I thought it was great that Duffy chose to write from a woman's perspective of a bible story, since most of the stories are written by men. I believe that Duffy wanted to make a statement, with her poem series The World's Wife, where she wants to communicate that a feminine persona or perspective is just as important as the masculine perspective. The poem Mrs Lazarus in particular raises the question whether the created persona is obliged to stay in the marriage with her resurrected husband, even though she has moved on with her life and never expected her husband to come back to life. Or would it be ethically wrong for her to have another husband? Would her husband have to do the same if she resurrected from the dead? Would she betray her resurrected husband if she did move on with her life? These kinds of question is left to the reader and may have the purpose to raise more global questions about gender equality.
Some examples:
Duffy has used imagery to show the different stages of grief and describe the mood and atmosphere. She describes the action of the created persona at the very beginning of grief, where the speaker is angry and wants to relive her memories with the dead husband: "Stuffed dark suits into black bags, shuffled in dead man's shoes" (line 9-10). The next stage is indicated with another imagery, where the poetic voice says that "he was vanishing to the small zero held by the gold of my ring" (line 20), which indicates that she has accepted that her husband is dead, however has not fully overcome her grief. The last stage, closure, is shown by the imagery with nature, where the speaker "stand[s] that evening in the field, in a shawl of fine air, able to watch the edge of the moon..." (line 27). "I breathed his tench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud" (line 48) This verse is an example of sensory imagery, which is used to set the atmosphere and mood.
The poet uses metaphors to describe the persona's emotions and also different stages of grief. The moment when the speaker lets go of her husband, indicates that she has progressed from denial to acceptance is described by a metaphor: "the last hair on his head floated out from a book" (line 16-17).
Personally, I thought it was great that Duffy chose to write from a woman's perspective of a bible story, since most of the stories are written by men. I believe that Duffy wanted to make a statement, with her poem series The World's Wife, where she wants to communicate that a feminine persona or perspective is just as important as the masculine perspective. The poem Mrs Lazarus in particular raises the question whether the created persona is obliged to stay in the marriage with her resurrected husband, even though she has moved on with her life and never expected her husband to come back to life. Or would it be ethically wrong for her to have another husband? Would her husband have to do the same if she resurrected from the dead? Would she betray her resurrected husband if she did move on with her life? These kinds of question is left to the reader and may have the purpose to raise more global questions about gender equality.