Andy,

Wow. What a breakthrough offering! No matter what the idea wholly, your suggestions are (at worst) cohesive and not really arguable and (at best) another layer to the symbolism of this poem.

Thank you very much.

~tim

P.S. Good to see you back again. 

Hi everyone! When the school year starts I can be a bit MIA as the students take much of my time and energy. But I just had to comment and join the forum. Forgive me if I repeat thoughts already expressed or see things in a new way although I read all your comments I so often "journey all alone" as Anne Sexton would say. 

I am a miner. The light burns blue. Per the point that blue light is negative clearly she is defining her present state as less than disierable. When I read this I immedialty thought of Sarah. Old in years and laughing in herself at the thought that she could have a son. 
Waxy stalactites   
Drip and thicken, tears   
 
The earthen womb   
Exudes from its dead boredom.   
Black bat airs   
 
Wrap me, raggy shawls,   
Cold homicides.   
They weld to me like plums.  I have chills as I read this how well she describes the invasion of life upon a women's body. Those first kicks like bat wings inspire as they punish.
 
Old cave of calcium   
Icicles, old echoer.   
Even the newts are white,   
 
Those holy Joes.   
And the fish, the fish -   
Christ! they are panes of ice,   
 
A vice of knives,   
A piranha   
Religion, drinking   
 
Its first communion out of my live toes.  Here she surrenders to the agony of those early months, she is frightned referencing her body as if it were an abandoned shaft where an unsettling predatory fish has chosen as homestead. Thus the piranha reference, now she eats, sleeps, drinks for two, a change at first for any woman with any level of independence yets even her toes give life, give sustenence.
The candle   
Gulps and recovers its small altitude,   
 
Its yellows hearten.   
O love, how did you get here?   
O embryo  Oh the arrival of the maternal instict, the parasite now a love. What she thought she could not handle is now welcomed.

Remembering, even in sleep,   
Your crossed position.   
The blood blooms clean   
 
In you, ruby.  Even as she sleeps she reflects on his innocence inside her, her blood unpure with her decisions and sins rings pure and precious in him.
The pain   
You wake to is not yours.  The ultimate parental fear to bring a life into a world that only offers it pain. But she has a plan...
 
Love, love,   
I have hung our cave with roses,   
With soft rugs -   
 
The last of Victoriana.  Yes, she is offering him the hieght of domestication, the role of motherhood is fully donned and the viel of donna reed embraced. she is saying I have a cave but I have softened for you. In short, I will do my best.
Let the stars   
Plummet to their dark address,   
 
Let the mercuric   
Atoms that cripple drip   
Into the terrible well,   
 
You are the one   
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.   
You are the baby in the barn.  Its funny where there is chaos in children there is the desire for their parents to  to be stable a God send for somenone like Plath. Just the desire to have solid spaces is a triumph. Ok there you go, my take. Just my own musings of course. I really like this poem its one of the greats. ---Andy

I had to come back in here because I think there are still a few loose ends. Most important to me, in this thread, is the "problem" of the word "envious" (I think Yvonne (Sierra) suggested the importance of it --- enigmatic as it might be). Envy is such an integral part of the psyche --- especially a fragile psyche constantly comparing and despairing as Plath no-doubt did.

Plath had a very close relationship with Anne Sexton (another confessional poet --- they met through Robert Lowell -- the penultimate confessional poet). Plath was VERY influenced by Sexton's poetry and probably the keynote piece was "My Friend, My Friend" (see below). THAT poem reeks of envy through the confessional motif IMHO. In this case, the line, "I think it would be better to be a Jew" reflects the envy and though I do NOT see the Jewish-envy link in the "Nick" poem, she DID use the word "envious" in a very unique context within her own poem. Also, it is no secret that Plath's poem "Daddy" is directly patterned from Sexton's poem below. There is also the linkage (from "daddy" and others) with her internal suffering as compared to Holocaust suffering.

What is she envious of in our Nick poem? I think there is more than one answer here.

Just more thoughts on this very strong poem and it may be that the key to her inner turmoil is directly linked to that enigmatic word, "envious".

Footnote:  Take note of the unique rhyme scheme Sexton used here.

Norm


My Friend, My Friend    by Anne Sexton

Who will forgive me for the things I do?
With no special legend of God to refer to,
With my calm white pedigree, my yankee kin,
I think it would be better to be a Jew.

I forgive you for what you did not do.
I am impossibly guilty. Unlike you,
My Friend, I can not blame my origin
With no special legend or God to refer to.

They wear The Crucifix as they are meant to do.
Why do their little crosses trouble you?
The effigies that I have made are genuine,
(I think it would be better to be a Jew).

Watching my mother slowly die I knew
My first release. I wish some ancient bugaboo
Followed me. But my sin is always my sin.
With no special legend or God to refer to.

Who will forgive me for the things I do?
To have your reasonable hurt to belong to
Might ease my trouble like liquor or aspirin.
I think it would be better to be a Jew.

And if I lie, I lie because I love you,
Because I am bothered by the things I do,
Because your hurt invades my calm white skin:
With no special legend or God to refer to,
I think it would be better to be a Jew.

Hi Yvonne,

nas' recent post took this exactly where i was going to go with it. The N is as envious of Nick as she is in need of him. A confliction to be sure.

Let me think on the fish question until tomorrow.
Thanks nas, your grounded insight into this poem has helped me tremendously.

~tim

Quote:


  I was only asking about the envy because no where in the poem suggests its origin to me.  Who has good reason to be jealous of the Jesus-child (or Nick)?  That bugs me.  I pointed out the Pharisees because that's just what came to my mind.  And why not?  After all, I'm still trying to make sense of the fishes!!  They probably don't have a place in the poem, a moot point anyhow!
It was just me and what I saw.  So what are the envious spaces? Even if she's angry/bitter about the problems at hand, that has nothing to do with envy. Every single word up to this point is so
purposefully selected, why would she stop with envious?
My understanding of what's going on (other than her 
depressive state) hinges on that word! Maybe her darkness is jealous of his light?  She wishes she could start new and not have so many problems?! 

I'm tired of thinking about this, guys.  I'm going to take a
break for a few days. 
 
She's just engaged all my senses  and
aroused compassion to the point of causing me to join her in her grief.  Maybe I'm depressed now!

The srongest for me is the sound of the emptiness.
I can't say I've ever heard something like that
so far in any poems I have ever read.

One more thing (which is probably not important), I found it an interesting comparison that she (the
mother of the savior baby) portrays herself in the raggy
shawls of depression, and Jesus' mother Mary is always
depicted in a beautiful, flowing mantle.

Tim, I would agree with your analysis of those lines.
The word that really stands out is 'envious'. I would say that what is being referred to as envious is the world, or society, maybe the Church, that has not given her the support and comfort that she needed. With Nick, her salvation, the light of her world, the rest are envious of what is now hers.

Yvonne,

I don't think the Pharisee  issue is being referenced here..this poem is all about the N and her solemn, mysterious desperation as it related to Nick, or miscarriage, etc. I see "envious" relating possibly to her "anger" that HER offspring do not have the "status" of Mary's son and the role he played in human and religious history. I think she is bitter about that.

Thoughts?

Norm

"CROSSed positions" .....

Time for another point that jumps out at me every time I read this poem ... I am always attracted to it because Plath uses assonance to perfection with the long "I" sounds to almost announce that the reader should take notice:

"And the fish-
Christ! They are panes of ice,

A vice of Knives,
A piranha 
Religion, drinking"

Forget that I might be reaching when I notice the two lines that have the long"I" sounds (assonance) are bordered  with lines with short sounding "I's" and the trilling "r's" in the final two lines. You see, beyond all the meaning, the symbols the suggestiveness .. the woman flat-out could use every literary device available to the poet. She is so careful of her word choices, phrases and stanza structures that I think it no accident when I come across lines like those above quoted.

Why draw us into these lines? Well she just blurts out "Christ!"  as if the reader should simply take it as an exclamatory like "Sheesh!" But with the combination of other Christian symbols presented (cross, etc), it must go beyond an exclamation where even "Holy S--t" might be substituted.  Nope .. I think it is her indictment of how her religion has failed her and like piranaha, peel her skin off and drink her blood (not mention HER first was a miscarriage and all those lines imply) ...all take and no "give". It is possibly a heck of a way to describe the wine portion of the communion, no? And if the fish are taking the communion here, what does THAT convey? Or the religious connotation of the Christ child at birth  (conception or "baby in the barn") to death (crucifixion).???

Just wondering what else you other guys see in these possibilities ... what other lines in the poem might be additional evidence for one or more of the above possibilities?

Norm