All,

This thread gives me an intellectual orgasm. I learn more with each post LOL.

Yikes! --- where to begin?  I think I must do my persnal input in bits and pieces.. There is just too much going on -- in the poem and in this thread. You guys are so insightful and "into" this great poem. (I told you, Tim ~smile~). This thread could go on for quite a while.  So I won't try and explain all my thoughts in this ONE post. I'd like to zero in on one or two ideas in each post so it doesn't become so random.

Yvonne said earlier: "If you don't have the prior knowledge (about her son Nick) and other personal cues, is it possible to make correct sense of what she is saying in this poem?  I am having a tough time putting together the images to see the things you explain, without the explanation I'm just lost.... "

Well, I suspect, with the exception of Ted Hughes, most readers would be lost on first reading this poem. I do not really know to what degree a reader might need biographical information on Plath to be able to gasp all the symbols, metaphors and imagery in this. But initially, I think it best to analyze "Nick and the Candlestick" with a virginal microscope. 

The title of the poem is like the light on a miner's helmet for THIS reader. The symbols of the miner, cave and stalactites are quite blatant and when linked to the title, they enable us (the spelunkers) to gain some insight into where Plath is leading us. Since I view this as an "identity-poem", the N takes us on this journey with a little bit of trepidation IMHO. After all, taking us inside the private psych of a person can be so risk-taking -- hence, the strong and hard-hitting metaphors and imagery.  Do I really need to know Sylvia's bio to grasp it all --- for "all", I'd have to say, "yes" in this instance. But leave it aside for now and only know one fact ... that Nick is her son...and that can take the reader a long way.

Well, back to the title >>> Terence posted, " 'Waxy stalactites Drip and thicken', -- It is also noteworthy that the above is how dipped candles are made." I think that is right on the mark, Terence. If you try and link the title and the major metaphor of the mining/cave exploration, you should be able to see the connection through the candle/stalactite symbols.

So my "challenge" for this particular post is to grab hold of the "mining" and "cave", linked with the title, and see where it leads us (pun intended).  What other road-posts are there in the poem itself (biography put aside) that complement the searching theme -- and sure, the Christian links can be incorporated with or without her bio.

Anxious to see what else you come up with on this particular element...

Norm

I think you're right Yvonne   

nas,

You are correct about the flame. i made the mistake of combining the two into one entity.

Also, one could say that the lack of child made her 'a little batty'. But, i wouldn't because that's far too cliche for my verrrrrrryyyy refined tastes. 

~tim

As I see it the boredom relates to the womb rather than the Narrator.  My take is that  the function of the uterus is to house and nurture the baby.  If the womb is barren, there is no baby then the womb is pretty much redundant.  The Narrator's despair at the womb's inertia creates the bats - depression.  I don't know if I'm explaining it well but I think I understand what she is getting at.

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i think that this may be the point where we have to stop with regards to the bio and finish with the poem itself. The logic of the poem dictates that we have attributed so much biography into the poem (which undoubtly she would have as well in order to write it, but probably didn't mean for everyone to hop on line and dissect it as we have) that we have turned this piece into a semi-biography and while she is methodical like that with her work, that may not have been her intent. 

Nick probably isn't the candlestick now that i look at it again. i crossed my wires with regards to the miners usage of flame, and the gas co.'s desire for blue flame. That was my mistake. i linked it to Nick and her prevailing notion of his 'purity'. If followed to a logical conclusion, the flame yellows and 'encourages' later on in the poem, how does that indicate an improvement using my thesis. It doesn't. i am more than happy to be wrong about that and move on. The first line is crucial to interpreting the metaphors and symbols. Given that i am miner, then all of this afterwards. The cave and miner are the blueprints (so to speak).

i think a key to the N's mentality is not as much fear as we have assigned to the poem, but S2 that reminds us of 'dead boredom exuding from the earthen womb'. i am usually not afraid and bored at the same time. Fear motivates and preoccupies my thoughts, boredom (which i seldom have because the world is full of so much to know...never mind the transitory nature of that knowledge...)does not.

Terence, i agree with you about the idea of the calcium cave refering to her pelvis/skeletal frame. That is where i took it the first time i read this beast. But, reading the vehicle literally for a moment, newts are semi-aquatic, while fish are fully aquatic. i am convinced that nothing in this poem is filler, so what is each of those creatures tenor (i.e. what do the newts and the fish represent)?

Newts make me think of eggs or ova, and the fish....well...?!

Yet, there is the issue of communion from her live toes. Now what? i thought that this references to the draw/leech on her body to create and sustain a child. On the first read i read it too literally and thought she was darning the church for failing her (which i think i mentioned early on), i can't support that theory now. 

Okay, i am going to double-back on my idea about the flame. Let me explain where i went with it before and you all can tell me how off base i am.

The blue flame represents the pure, oxygen efficent flame. This is Nick in the body of the N/Plath.
Before S7, everything is cold and deathly. Depressing to say the least. But, in S7-8 we are given....

Its first communion out of my live toes.   
The candle   
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,   
 
Its yellows hearten.   
O love, how did you get here?   
O embryo  

As the embryo grows and she can feel it and acknowledge it, she begins to love it...hearten=encourage.

After this point in the poem, the N loves the baby, no more boredom, she sees the world as a mother-to-be and all the wonder that comes with it. Especially the preoccupation of getting things ready for it's arrival. The spaces in the last stanza, the emptiness, relies on him. Again, his saviour. That is where my thought on the candle goes. Blue is efficent, but efficent is not usually emotional or empathic, yellow fire is wild, raw, romantic and empathic. That is where i was going with it. That is why i thought the flame was Nick. i could be wrong. i have been wrong before and i'll be wrong again.

~tim

There could well be those references, nas. There was also some speculation she had an abortion when she was still trying to keep her marriage to Ted secret. Yes, miscarriage is a fear and the poem does not, from what I can see other than the title, address the fact that Nick was born, it is all about the pregnancy. Quite possibly, with her state of mind, that fear may have been heightened and factored into the poem. At the moment I couldn't truly tell one way or the other.

Tim,

  I have to question your earlier statement "The title ... refers to her son Nicholas and in fact, in a metaphorical sense, could be retitlted Nick IS the candlestick."

   Is Nick the "candlestick", being the holder of the candle? Could Nick actually be the candle and her womb, that carries the candle, be the candlestick? Nick, the candle, is the one that brings a light into her life, grows from her body, actually similar to stalactites growing from elements/impurities in the water that feed them. 

 

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Oh--that sounds much better than what I was thinking, but at the same time much worse....than it would appear she has lost this child?  Which would explain the emptiness.  Also, I was just thinking that making this child like Jesus in the end, would then be comparable to how we tend to idolize the dead....but this child being the greater gift in her eyes, and the "real" (solid) that she has to lean on, more than any old religion could give.