Plath uses an extended metaphor, that of a cadaver wrapped in burial cloth, to create an image of her outer covering, her skin, as her perceived identity.  Lazarus was a man pronounced dead whom Jesus reportedly brought back to life, though he had already lain for four days dressed in his burial shroud.  Plath compares herself to this, creating images of her skin being "peeled" off or "unwrapped" as allusions to this story from the New Testament.  In this poem, her skin becomes the layers of cloth that create the shroud.

She describes her skin as a "lampshade"...

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