Plath \"Nick and the Candlestick\" paragraph PDF

Preview

Summary

Mod A Plath & Hughes paragraph response, Rank 11 NSW Selective High School...

Description

How does 'Nick and the Candlestick' showcase the idea and importance of context to reveal meaning? (Put end of marriage context) In Nick and the Candlestick, written in 1962, Plath conveys the mother’s paradoxical terror of a patriarchal society that her child confronts, and the possibility of salvation offered by the innocence it embodies. Written during the Cold War, Plath alludes to the horrors created by domineering figures through emphasis on the maternal desire to protect her baby from the nightmarish world she inhabits. Plath’s use of a miner and the cave analogy is initially a reflection of her sense of entrapment in a world dominated by inescapable patriarchal power and corruption. In a visceral accumulation of metaphors, “Waxy stalactites … Black bat airs … raggy shawls / Cold homicides” she evokes the horrors of an external world of uncompromising terrors. In addition, she questions her own capacity to fulfill her maternal desire to protect her infant son from the nightmarish reality of this world. Hence, the symbolism of “A vice of knives / A piranha / Religion” which represents her fear annihilation, underlies her overwhelming sense of personal victimisation by the existential dangers which threaten her both as a woman and a mother. However, this bitter denunciation of a world in which patriarchal hulons had led to the Cold War, is balanced with the gentle bewilderment of a mother contemplating the miracle of a new life. The rhetorical question, “O love, how did you get here?” follows on from the metaphorical connotations of “The candle / Gulps and recovers its small altitude” to establish that her personal hope in salvation is reignited by the wondrous and pure infant. The alliterative “The blood blooms clean” captures this sense of renewal and the nativity allusion, “you are the baby in the barn” becomes an affirmation of Plath’s belief that in a world where “mercuric / Atoms … drip / Into the terrible well”, her baby will be “the one / Solid”. The antithesis between “drip” and “solid” reinforcing Plath’s recognition of Nick as her saviour. Hence, Plath reveals meaning in Nick and the Candlestick through portraying the adverse reality caused by patriarchal figures and her salvation from this world as a result of childbirth, thus, showcasing the idea and importance of context....