Complete Detailed Analysis of Plath's 'Nick and The Candlestick
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Course
Poetry- Sylvia Plath
Institution
AQA
Book
Collected Poems
Detailed analysis of Plath's 'Nick and the candlestick'- Includes: Language, Themes, Tone, Structure, Personal View, New Concepts, Effect on the reader, Title, Purpose and Context!
Nick and The Candlestick- Sylvia Plath This stanza places her walking through darkness, literally and
Extended metaphorically. This darkness is likened unto a cave. The tone is
Metaphor bleak and depressing. Plath uses imagery to illustrate the painful
I I am a miner. The light burns blue. pregnancy that she was going through. eg 'I am a miner'- being a
Waxy stalactites miner is a dangerous job and this also relates to how being a
Drip and thicken, tears mother is dangerous. 'I am' indicates that she is alone and must
Metaphor- candle and the cave it illuminates bear all the pain by herself, so she finds it quite depressing. The
merge and become inseparable. ‘waxy writer carries a lamp to try enlighten herself on the journey of
stalactites’ are both the wax dripping from the motherhood and to elucidate any dangers.
candle and the stone formations the
candlelight reveals. wax = dripping tears
‘The earthen womb’ has awakened and given life in a place of
death. Her next stanza “Cold homicides” illustrates this fact.
Comparing her womanhood to that of a dark cave filled with bats
The earthen womb and death is brutal. As the poem continues terrifying newts, fish
Exudes from its dead boredom. and piranhas are introduced. Exploring this tender “womb” brings
Black bat airs vulnerability. ‘Black bat airs/ Wrap me’ suggests that her
Plosive surroundings are impinging on her, not allowing her space to
alliteration / move, an allusion to her freedom and personal space.
shocking,
sinister / dark The denotation of the noun “Plum” could mean worth. Monthly
thoughts deaths aren’t meaningless; Deaths are as real as the literal hurt
Wrap me, raggy shawls, they bring. Their failures add triumph to the one success this
Cold homicides. poem is based around. However, poetry is subjective and
They weld to me like plums. personal with differing interpretations. “Plum” has sensory
connotations relating to the colour of a bruise. Complexly
Simil reiterating her reality of pain through a reliance on her readers
e experiences.
Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer. The use of imagery is to portray that her womb is old, decaying,
Even the newts are white, and meaningless, yet at the same time, it is nutritious as it is filled
with calcium and is good for the body. The interior of the
chromatic imagery- white= speaker’s body: her pelvis is a kind of cave, its walls made of
innocence, purity, blank slate, white, calcium-filled bones. Enjambment- use to emphasise on a
isolation, cold particular word or phrase eg 'old cave of calcium' additional
pause to emphasise on the work calcium- refers to ger womb as
Those holy Joes. empty and how long she has been without life.
And the fish, the fish— As the poet continues her psychic descent, everything becomes
Christ! they are panes of ice, white- as though she is entering an icy afterword. Cold as ice, fish
swarm around her.
A vice of knives, Evokes danger of death in utero. recall the thin boundary
between life and death that persists throughout the
precarious passage from conception to birth. “A vice of
knives,” set to tighten, also evokes the sheer pain endured
during childbirth.
Piranhas attack the speaker’s toes and drink her blood, an
, A piranha
Religion, drinking
Its first communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,
Struggling for air -
vulnerable /
candle is
oppressed by air /
Trying to survive.
Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo
Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position.
The blood blooms clean
Life imagery / Babies
=innocent/pure /'Blood' = life
and vitality / 'ruby' suggests
baby is special
In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.
Repetition
Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses,
With soft rugs—
The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address, The speaker's son brings her such
great fulfilment that she would be
content if the world came to an end,
the stars falling from the sky.
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