Nick and the Candlestick Essay Questions

Discuss this poem's treatment of the themes of home and the domestic.

The speaker of "Nick and the Candlestick" portrays home as a painstakingly maintained illusion, crafted out of a desire to protect the innocent and vulnerable. She tells her newborn that the two of them are in a foreboding mine or cave, packed with dangers. This cave is a metaphorical representation of her current emotional state, but it is also evocative of wildness and even early human prehistory. She contrasts this cave with "Victoriana," referencing domestic comfort, as well as nineteenth-century beliefs in the importance and achievability of a comfortable, sheltered domestic space. However, the roses and rugs of Victoriana are described as decorating the walls of the cave. In other words, Plath's speaker can only hope to adorn a dangerous space with elements of safety in order to create a convincing impression of domesticity.

Identify, and discuss the effects of, an instance of assonance or alliteration in this poem.

Already in the first line of "Nick and the Candlestick," Sylvia Plath creates a feeling of tense alertness with assonant, long "I" sounds. Such sounds appear not only in the opening line's "miner" and "light," but also in numerous other instances. Among these are stanza five's "Christ" and "ice," and stanza six's "vice" and "knives." Indeed, these tense, high vowels grow more frequent as the speaker's sojourn in the cave grows more frightening. But, as soon as she begins to address her child, these sounds are replaced by calmer and deeper short "U" sounds. The switch from one assonant vowel to another echoes the speaker's feeling of groundedness as she speaks to her child.