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*Comparing God and Lucifer as equals - God as evil, not good (based on life experiences)

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*The ash/burning could refer to the burning of the Jews - Holocaust reference (again link to weakness, loss of identity

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*Opus - art form, precious jewel
*Plath seeing herself as valuable, superior, amazing
(followed by melts to a shriek, turn and burn - vulnerability, weakness, etc.)

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Plays into Plath putting on a facade - continuously "coming back" to the same life where everyone continues to think she's fine

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Is it a charge in a literal sense? (The electroshock therapy)

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"I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real" may be referring to her constant desire for harm, caused by her abundance of self-hatred.

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Plath begins to publish more revealing poems about herself - "strip tease" may refer to the revealing/stripping down of herself

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Plath wrote this poem only a few months before she died (suicide) - foreshadowing her own death at the age of 30, to usher in the new decade

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"Nevertheless, I am the same identical woman" may be referring to how Plath's attitude towards death has not changed.
Whether her encounters were accidental or not, she constantly viewed death as her ultimate nirvana.

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Cat Cliche - comparison to the cat - has survived multiple encounters with death - idea that she's invincible/new start each time

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*Vanishing in a day - will she vanish quickly? Feel like she will be forgotten quickly?
*Grave cave - where she attempted to take her own life?
*Struggle with mental health issues may lead to the idea that she feels at "home" in death

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"I am a smiling woman" may be furthering her comment about having an alternate facade; hiding the fact that she is struggling with her mental health to avoid being saved.

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An accidental attempt was made at the age of 10 from drowning, at the age of 20, she first attempted suicide by using her mother's sleeping pills. At the age of 30, she killed herself from carbon monoxide poisoning with gas from stove.

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After her 3rd suicide attempt failed, she feels that she has wasted 30 years

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Due to Plath's depression distorting her perceptions, she continues to negatively view people's concern

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referring to plath's car accident and her college suicide attempts

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In correlation to these two comments, Plath did not attempt suicide only twice, she attempted suicide "multiple times" after her marriage fell apart.

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Body parts dispersed among poem could connect to her father losing his foot due to not taking care of his diabetes.

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"I am your opus / I am your valuable, / The pure gold baby" may be referring to the fact that she WAS once appreciated and loved by her husband; prior to his affair.

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This may show Plath's fear of facing an audience who applaud the miracle of her return

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The narrator is referring to when Sylvia Plath, locked the doors in her house and turned on the gas stove.

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'A miracle' could refer to her doctor friend who gave her anti depressants before she died. The friend could have thought it would help Plath, but she did not agree.

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"The amused shout/A miracle" This refers to her first attempt of suicide at age 20 as it was known as almost successful. The charge that knocks her out could be the electroshock therapy that saved her life

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"A sort of walking miracle my skin bright as Nazi lampshade my right foot" refers to how her dad was German and died because he had to amputate his foot because of untreated diabetes

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When Plath was twenty, she attempted suicide, overdosed on sleeping pills.

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Plath worked 4am-8am shifts, therefor after work, she would return home in "broad day".

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Plath, listing a wedding ring with these items that are just things with no meaning or sentimental value could refer to the lack of meaning a wedding ring has to her due to her experiences or being cheated on and abandoned

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When she left a note saying that she went on a long walk, the seashell can symbolize Plath when she is alone (when the water leaves)

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this could refer to her many high quality scholarships and straight A marks

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During Plath's 6 months of psychiatric care, she most likely felt like she was constantly being watched while she was in a vulnerable state.

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Plath compares her father to a Nazi doctor, as she had believed that he had in fact committed suicide rather than dying of gangrene, which caused her to resent him rather than mourn him. Additionally, Plath had encounters with various doctors who had attempted to help with her depression, who she also may have resented based on her intention of suicide

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Plath was famous for her short stories and poems which granted her many scholarships throughout her life. With this high reputation, she begins to feel as if she's developed a napkin (mask) that hides her true identity as someone who is mentally unstable (suffering from her mental illness).  She believes this image is terrifying

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The "napkin" could refer to her hidden identity, as she has written under her pen name, Victoria Lucas, multiple times.

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Plath states "i eat men like air". Plath had many bad experiences with men in her life. (father, lover etc..)

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As the poem was published in 1962, various allusions to WWII are made, as it was a recent event on a global scale. This means that the readers would have a reference to the way the narrator, and Plath herself is feeling, as they can relate it to the well known atrocities committed.

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when Plath says "and like the cat i have nine times to die. This is Number Three." refers to how many times she's tried to commit suicide and this is number 3.

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Plath is discussing her encounters with death, when stating "I have done it again. / One year in every ten".

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The "charge" could refer to the electroshock therapy she went through.

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when Plath says "herr god herr lucifer beware beware" its referring to how god didn't help her so now she wants some sort of revenge

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Plath's first intentional attempt at suicide, she was found in a crawl space covered in worms and vomit.

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Plath almost drowned at age 10

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

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.