Nick and the Candlestick Summary & Analysis
by Sylvia Plath

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  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Introduction

    • Sylvia Plath's “Nick and the Candlestick” is a free verse poem told from the perspective of a woman who has recently given birth. As she nurses her son, the speaker expresses her struggle to navigate early motherhood by comparing herself to a miner who scours a grisly cave. However, she finds solace in her child, who becomes both her guiding light and the precious stone she seeks. Plath composed “Nick and the Candlestick” in October of 1962 along with a flurry of other poems that would eventually make up Ariel, the American poet’s acclaimed 1965 posthumous collection. The poem’s title alludes to the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble" as well as to Plath’s son, Nicholas, who was born shortly before this poem was written.

  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Summary

    • The speaker feels like a miner, guided by a dying flame whose light is blue. The cave she moves about drips with water that deposits minerals, slowly forming tapered structures that hang from its ceiling. They remind the speaker of a candle dripping wax.

      They also remind her of tears seeping out of an inactive womb within the earth. Bats soar through the cave's air, which envelopes the speaker.

      She is wrapped tattered swaths of fabric in the chilly and deathlike atmosphere. An ominous sensation lingers, clinging to the speaker as a plum's flesh clings to its pit.

      The speaker describes the cave as old and filled with echoes. The tapered structures that hang from it look like icicles made of calcium. The cave is so frigid and ghostly that even the newts it houses are white, their color as pure as a clergyman.

      The cave is also home to fish, which are shockingly cold—frozen into sheets of ice.

      Those sheets of ice are sharp and cutting, like knives used for some depraved purpose. The fish suck life out of the speaker's toes as if they are piranhas receiving the Eucharist—the body and blood of Christ—for the first time.

      The candle whose flame had been dying out takes a big sip of oxygen, regaining its height and enlivening its yellow flames.

      The speaker tenderly addresses her child, asking him how he came to be in such a place. She addresses him again as an "embryo."

      The speaker commends her son for remaining nicely folded within her throughout the pregnancy, even while he was sleeping. His blood is clean and pure, and he is the precious gem to her miner.

      The speaker assures her child that, while pain pervades the world he is born into, that pain is not caused by or directed at him.

      She then refers to him as her "love," telling her son that she has made their cave more hospitable by draping its walls with roses and cozy rugs.

      The ornamentation is all that remains of a simpler, more romantic time. The speaker's son brings her such great fulfillment that she would be content if the world came to an end, the stars falling from the sky.

      The speaker wouldn't care if toxic atoms of mercury dribbled into the world's reservoirs, which she finds disagreeable anyways.

      The speaker believes that her son is the only real, reliable force, and other forces jealously depend on him. To put it differently, her universe revolves around him. In summation, the speaker's son is her savior—baby Jesus in the manger.

  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Themes

    • Theme The Challenges of Motherhood

      The Challenges of Motherhood

      Guided by candlelight, the poem’s speaker approaches her infant son’s bedroom and nurses him. She compares this experience to a miner searching through a cave. In doing so, the speaker suggests that nourishing this new life depletes her and generates fear. Caring for her son diminishes the speaker’s resources, leaving her feeling worn out and estranged from her own body. The poem thus implies that, although it is expected to be a woman’s greatest joy, motherhood also brings about great challenges.

      Throughout the poem, the speaker compares herself to “a miner” tossed into the dark, unfamiliar cave that is new motherhood. The light that guides her “burns blue,” indicating that its flame is dying out. In other words, as the speaker gets deeper into motherhood, her resources diminish until she has next-to-nothing left.

      The speaker also says she is wrapped in “raggy shawls” that fail to keep her warm. As the speaker’s tools grow sparse, her ability to care for herself decays along with them. Moreover, the speaker does not actively nourish her child. Rather, the life-giving force wells up involuntarily, like “tears.” Milk is drained from her as if she were a pagan sacrifice: “A piranha / Religion, drinking / Its first communion out of my live toes.” This comparison again signals that child rearing exhausts her resources, as if they are hemorrhaging out of her.

      The speaker also casts her physical self as a vessel or an offering rather than a living being. Indeed, with new motherhood comes a newly empty womb, and now that the speaker’s does not carry a child, it is overcome with “dead boredom.” The speaker refers to her body as a “cave” and an “echoer,” indicating a vast, empty space. In this way, motherhood has transformed her body from a place of vitality into one of desolation. A shell of her former self, the speaker cannot imagine how her inhospitable womb once nurtured her child, asking him, “how did you get here?”

      As the speaker mourns her body, her mortality becomes increasingly apparent—just one of the many fears that motherhood gives rise to. The speaker twice calls her newly empty womb “old,” suggesting that, now that she is done bearing children, she feels closer to death. In fact, the speaker repeatedly describes the “cave”—that is, new motherhood, including her new body—as “cold” and “white.” These are the most prominent characteristics of a corpse. As such, the speaker fixates on her own physical deterioration, implying that her womb’s bleak, lifeless state increases her awareness of her own mortality.

      Furthermore, mining is a perilous line of work, known for its high rates of workplace injury and death. Therefore, the speaker’s decision to liken this profession to motherhood signals that being a new mother is fearsome. Additionally, the speaker must grope around in the dark, unaware where (and whether) she will find success. Briefly referring to her struggles more directly, the speaker informs her son that “The blood blooms clean / In you, ruby. / The pain / You wake to is not yours.” These assurances imply that the speaker is concerned about possibly imbuing her child with the troubles that she faces, be they genetic or environmental.

      As such, the speaker projects fear about her parenting abilities. Therefore, the speaker’s experience of early motherhood is treacherous, as fear and exhaustion act as additional burdens that she must carry. In this way, she provides a radically authentic account of motherhood by disclosing the many unsettling challenges that come with it.

      Where this theme appears in the poem:
      • Lines 1-30
    • Theme Finding Fulfillment in Motherhood

      Finding Fulfillment in Motherhood

      The tenor of the speaker’s narration shifts dramatically as she turns to address her son, and their relationship alleviates many of the parenting difficulties laid out in the poem’s first half. The poem implies that her child has the potential to resolve external concerns that weigh heavily on her, offering salvation. Thus, while being a new mother proves taxing, the speaker finds unparalleled fulfillment in her child himself.

      The speaker’s son reinvigorates her, easing the burdens of parenting. Initially, the flame that guides the speaker “burns blue,” suggesting that it is dying out. However, when the speaker turns towards her son, it burns with greater intensity, regaining its height and yellow glow. In this way, the speaker’s son revives her faculties and illuminates her path forward through this new phase of her life.

      The speaker also refers to her son as “ruby,” suggesting that he is the precious material that motivates her to explore the cave. As the cave comes to represent new motherhood, this moniker supports the idea that the speaker’s son is a beacon that leads her through this uncharted territory, making it more manageable.

      Further, while addressing her son, the speaker uses terms related to gestation, emphasizing their deep, carnal bond. For example, she calls him “embryo” and commends him for maintaining a “crossed position” within her during pregnancy. As such, the speaker’s womb is presented as a nurturing home to new life, in contrast to the dead, desolate landscape described earlier.

      Similarly, the speaker says, “Love, love, / I have hung our cave with roses, / With soft rugs.” She refers to these furnishings as “Victoriana,” gesturing to some romantic former time. In this way, the birth of the speaker’s son leads her to dramatically soften the setting, while grim, lifeless images subside. Therefore, the speaker’s relationship with her child gives her new life and purpose, guiding her through the dark, difficult terrain of new motherhood.

      Additionally, the speaker’s son presents her with the opportunity to reconcile with the external forces that haunt her, ultimately becoming her savior. The speaker says to her son, “The blood blooms clean in you,” presumably referring to him sustaining the speaker’s bloodline. The term “clean” implies hope that he will carry on a newly purified pedigree—one lacking the limitations that the speaker is beholden to.

      In addition to genetic disadvantages, the speaker is hopeful that the environmental stresses she faces will also be laid to rest with this new generation. She remarks, “The pain / you wake to is not yours.” In other words, the speaker is optimistic about the possibility that her son will not absorb the psychic hardships that she experiences.

      In the end, the speaker takes such solace in her son that if the world were to end, she would be content. Expressing acceptance of even the darkest corners of the universe, she exclaims, “Let the stars plummet … Let the mercuric / Atoms that cripple drip.” In the poem’s final lines it becomes clear that the speaker’s son is a messianic, Christlike figure to her. He is “the one” stable force that she can rely on—so much so that her world seems to revolve around (or “lean on”) him. Indeed, she likens her child to Jesus, calling him “the baby in the barn.” As such, the speaker sees in her son the potential for salvation, which brings her unique comfort in a troublesome world—much like the relief he provides from the burdens of motherhood, discussed above. Therefore, the speaker finds unparalleled fulfillment in her son, elevating the mutual nourishment that motherhood provides.

      Where this theme appears in the poem:
      • Lines 20-42
  • Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Nick and the Candlestick”

    • Lines 1-5

      I am a ...
      ... its dead boredom.

      Before "Nick and the Candlestick" even begins, its title creates expectations about the poem's content. In particular, the title's rhyme and imagery alludes to the classic nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble":

      Jack be nimble.
      Jack be quick.
      Jack jump over the candlestick.

      As a result, it would be reasonable to expect that the verse that follows is lighthearted and suitable for children. In reality, its elaborate metaphors are often difficult to decipher, while its language skews dark and gloomy. This becomes clear within the poem's first few lines, which describe a miner searching an eerie cave by dying candlelight. This initial passage thus introduces tension between the poem's nursery rhyme connotations and its sinister mood, which will reflect the speaker's personal ambivalence towards motherhood.

      These lines also establish the poem's central conceit—the speaker compares her experience of motherhood to a miner traversing a cave. By pointing out her dying candle, the speaker suggests that her resources are running thin, the cave is dim, and she struggles to navigate it. Furthermore, mining is known as a dangerous line of work, with the goal of extracting some valuable material. These underlying connotations implicitly begin to shape the poem's meaning.

      The simple and language and sentence structure in the poem's opening line also make its meaning clear. These direct statements of fact establish the speaker's authority and credibility before launching the reader into a series of complex metaphors.

      Lines 2-5 continue to characterize the cave. From its roof hangs stalactites—tapered structures created by trickling water, which deposits minerals slowly over time. These might be symbolic of the speaker's breasts filled with milk to nurse her child. Yet the speaker calls the drippings "tears," suggesting sadness, and the cave becomes "the earthen womb."

      This metaphor signals that the poem is concerned with motherhood and that the cave represents the speaker's body—insinuations that will become clearer later. Moreover, line 5 indicates that the cave is inactive through the use of pathetic fallacy, as it experiences "dead boredom." This form of personification portrays the cave as a living thing—albeit one that is nearly bored to death—and can be interpreted as a commentary on the speaker’s newly-empty womb.

      As the poem opens, its meter features a high concentration of stressed syllables, giving it force. However, this gives way to a more iambic (unstressed-stressed) meter with isolated stresses that mimick dripping water. Assonance and consonance exaggerate the rhythm by calling additional attention to syllables that receive metrical stress:

      I am a miner. The light burns blue.
      Waxy stalactites
      Drip and thicken, tears

      Assonance and consonance continue throughout this passage, creating slant and internal rhymes among "womb," "from," and "boredom." These clusters of repeating sounds draw the audience in and bridge abrupt, enjambed line breaks.

    • Lines 6-9

      Black bat airs ...
      ... me like plums.

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    • Lines 10-13

      Old cave of ...
      ... Those holy Joes.

    • Lines 14-19

      And the fish, ...
      ... my live toes.

    • Lines 20-22

      The candle ...
      ... Its yellows hearten.

    • Lines 23-26

      O love, how ...
      ... Your crossed position.

    • Lines 27-30

      The blood blooms ...
      ... is not yours.

    • Lines 31-34

      Love, love, ...
      ... last of Victoriana.

    • Lines 35-39

      Let the stars ...
      ... the terrible well,

    • Lines 40-42

      You are the ...
      ... in the barn.

  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Symbols

    • Symbol The Cave

      The Cave

      The cave is symbolic on two levels—it represents both the speaker's home and her body/womb. The cave is first introduced as an "earthen womb" that the speaker moves about, guided only by a dying light. This description suggests that she has trouble navigating her post-birth body. Shortly thereafter it is called an "old cave of calcium / icicles, old echoer." The cave's coldness, emptiness, and age indicate that the speaker's womb is no longer habitable or nourishing. Indeed, the life that is inside her "cave"—fish and newts—is icy and white, signaling that it has died. The stalactites that hang from the cave are bored "waxy ... tears" in addition to "calcium / icicles." They can be seen as her nutrient-rich breast milk or her life-giving forces more broadly, which are passive and hardened.

      Later, the setting becomes "our cave" as the speaker lovingly turns to her son. She explains that she has made their home more comfortable by covering it in flowers and rugs. This is an attempt to offset "the pain" that pervades the environment that he is born into. As such, the cave's cold, ghostly atmosphere described earlier can also be interpreted as the bitterness of the world outside the womb.

      Where this symbol appears in the poem:
      • Lines 1-3: “I am a miner. The light burns blue. / Waxy stalactites / Drip and thicken, tears”
      • Line 4: “The earthen womb”
      • Lines 5-6: “Exudes from its dead boredom. / Black bat airs”
      • Line 7: “Wrap me,”
      • Lines 10-11: “Old cave of calcium / Icicles, old echoer”
      • Line 12: “Even the newts are white,”
      • Line 32: “our cave”
    • Symbol The Candle

      The Candle

      The candle that guides the speaker symbolizes the positive aspects of motherhood, particularly the promise for redemption and reconciliation that new life offers. It might also thus be thought of as representing the speaker's son himself, given that the child is what seems to make the travails of motherhood worth it.

      At first, its "light burns blue" and the speaker's path forward is uncertain. Ill-equipped with only a dying light and tattered rags, she struggles to adjust to new motherhood. However, when the speaker turns to her son, the candle's flame gets a reinvigorating breath of oxygen, growing bigger and burning brighter. Further, the speaker is hopeful that the familial challenges she has faced could end with her son. She is assured that her bloodline becomes “clean” in him and “the pain” that fills their environment will not be his burden. In this way, he is quite literally her "light at the end of the tunnel"—a potential resolution to her struggles and a blessing that makes her parenting journey worthwhile. As her beacon, he provides clarity, guidance, and motivation.

      Where this symbol appears in the poem:
      • Line 1: “The light”
      • Line 20: “The candle”
    • Symbol Blood

      Blood

      Blood appears twice within the poem as a symbol of the speaker’s life force and resources, which she channels into nurturing her son. At first the speaker describes fish sucking blood from her toes ritualistically:

      A piranha
      Religion, drinking

      Its first communion out of my live toes.

      Here, motherhood seems to physically drain the speaker, leaving her feeling depleted. Indeed, surrounding this image are descriptions of a cold, desolate cave.

      However, shortly thereafter the speaker remarks to her son, “The blood blooms clean / In you, ruby.” In other words, by giving herself over to her son, the speaker gains hope that his life will be better than hers; that her blood will be purified within her child. Thus, the development of this symbol supports the speaker’s central message that although motherhood may be grueling, it also promises fulfillment.

      Where this symbol appears in the poem:
      • Line 19: “first communion”
      • Line 27: “The blood”
  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

    • Allusion

      This poem contains a few allusions, the first of which appears in its title. “Nick and the Candlestick” recalls the nursery rhyme “Jack Be Nimble”:

      Jack be nimble.
      Jack be quick.
      Jack jump over the candlestick.

      In this verse, the Jack character has been replaced with Nick—a shortened form of Nicholas, the name of Plath’s son. Nick rhymes with “candlestick,” strengthening its association with classic nursery rhymes. As such, readers naturally come to expect lighthearted verse. However, they are soon confronted with “tears” and “cold homicides.”

      Still, the poem contains a great deal of assonance and consonance, producing both perfect and slant rhymes. The resulting tension between the poem’s musicality and dark imagery reflects the speaker’s ambivalence about motherhood—it wears her thin like “raggy shawls,” but her son is her “love” and her “ruby.” This contrast is an example of juxtaposition, discussed in greater detail in its own entry in this guide.

      The poem’s final line also contains an allusion—in this case, to the nativity of Jesus, or the story of Christ’s birth in the Bible’s New Testament. By referring to her son as “the baby in the barn,” the speaker implies that he is Christlike. What exactly the speaker means by this can be inferred using clues offered earlier, particularly in lines 27-30:

      The blood blooms clean

      In you, ruby.
      The pain
      You wake to is not yours.

      This passage suggests that the speaker’s son is not plagued by the inherited or environmental demons that haunt her. In the Christian tradition, Jesus is a figure of forgiveness and salvation from sin. Likening her son to Christ, the speaker finds in him renewed clarity, purpose, and hope for a better life.

      This allusion also provides a resolution to an earlier reference to Christianity, in which a piranha sucks the speaker’s blood as if she is “its first communion.” This image emphasizes all the sacrifices that motherhood requires. But at the poem’s conclusion, her sacrifices are met with the ultimate reward—her son.

      Where allusion appears in the poem:
      • Lines 17-19: “A piranha  / Religion, drinking / Its first communion out of my live toes.”
      • Line 20: “The candle”
      • Line 42: “You are the baby in the barn.”
    • Apostrophe

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      Where apostrophe appears in the poem:
      • Lines 23-42: “O love, how did you get here? / O embryo / Remembering, even in sleep, / Your crossed position. / The blood blooms clean / In you, ruby. / The pain / You wake to is not yours. / Love, love, / I have hung our cave with roses, / With soft rugs— / The last of Victoriana. / 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.”
    • Assonance

      Where assonance appears in the poem:
      • Line 2: “Waxy stalactites”
      • Line 3: “Drip,” “thicken”
      • Lines 4-5: “womb / Exudes”
      • Line 6: “Black bat”
      • Line 7: “Wrap,” “me,” “raggy”
      • Line 9: “plums”
      • Line 10: “Old,” “calcium”
      • Line 11: “old echoer”
      • Line 13: “Those holy Joes”
      • Line 15: “Christ,” “ice”
      • Line 16: “vice,” “knives”
      • Line 19: “my live”
      • Line 23: “O”
      • Line 24: “O embryo”
      • Line 25: “even,” “sleep”
      • Line 27: “blooms,” “clean”
      • Line 28: “you,” “ruby”
      • Line 29: “pain”
      • Line 30: “You,” “wake”
      • Line 31: “Love,” “love”
      • Line 32: “hung”
      • Line 33: “rugs”
      • Line 34: “Victoriana”
      • Line 35: “stars”
      • Line 36: “dark”
      • Lines 38-39: “cripple drip / Into”
      • Line 39: “terrible”
    • Asyndeton

      Where asyndeton appears in the poem:
      • Lines 3-5: “Drip and thicken, tears / The earthen womb / Exudes from its dead boredom.”
      • Lines 7-8: “Wrap me, raggy shawls, / Cold homicides”
      • Lines 10-11: “Old cave of calcium / Icicles, old echoer.”
      • Lines 15-18: “they are panes of ice, / A vice of knives, / A piranha  / Religion”
      • Lines 21-22: “Gulps and recovers its small altitude, / Its yellows hearten”
      • Lines 32-33: “I have hung our cave with roses, / With soft rugs”
    • Consonance

      Where consonance appears in the poem:
      • Line 1: “burns blue”
      • Line 2: “Waxy stalactites”
      • Line 3: “thicken”
      • Line 5: “Exudes,” “dead boredom”
      • Line 6: “Black bat”
      • Line 9: “weld,” “like,” “plums”
      • Line 10: “Old,” “cave,” “calcium”
      • Line 11: “Icicles,” “old echoer”
      • Line 12: “Even,” “newts,” “white”
      • Line 13: “Those,” “Joes”
      • Line 15: “Christ,” “ice”
      • Line 16: “vice”
      • Line 18: “drinking”
      • Line 19: “communion”
      • Line 20: “candle”
      • Line 21: “Gulps,” “recovers,” “small altitude”
      • Line 22: “yellows”
      • Line 23: “love,” “how,” “here”
      • Line 24: “embryo”
      • Line 25: “Remembering,” “sleep”
      • Line 26: “crossed position”
      • Line 27: “blood blooms clean”
      • Line 28: “ruby”
      • Line 32: “roses”
      • Line 33: “rugs”
      • Line 34: “last”
      • Line 35: “Let,” “stars”
      • Line 36: “Plummet,” “dark address”
      • Line 37: “Let,” “mercuric”
      • Line 38: “cripple drip”
      • Line 39: “terrible well”
      • Line 41: “Solid,” “spaces,” “lean,” “on,” “envious”
      • Line 42: “baby,” “barn”
    • End-Stopped Line

      Where end-stopped line appears in the poem:
      • Line 1: “ blue.”
      • Line 5: “boredom.”
      • Line 7: “shawls,”
      • Line 8: “homicides.”
      • Line 9: “plums.”
      • Line 11: “echoer.”
      • Line 12: “white,”
      • Line 13: “Joes.”
      • Line 14: “fish—”
      • Line 15: “ice,”
      • Line 16: “knives,”
      • Line 19: “toes.”
      • Line 21: “altitude,”
      • Line 22: “hearten.”
      • Line 23: “here?”
      • Line 25: “sleep,”
      • Line 26: “position.”
      • Line 28: “ruby.”
      • Line 30: “yours.”
      • Line 31: “love,”
      • Line 32: “roses,”
      • Line 33: “rugs—”
      • Line 34: “Victoriana.”
      • Line 36: “address,”
      • Line 39: “well,”
      • Line 41: “envious.”
      • Line 42: “barn.”
    • Enjambment

      Where enjambment appears in the poem:
      • Lines 2-3: “stalactites / Drip”
      • Lines 3-4: “ tears / The”
      • Lines 4-5: “womb / Exudes”
      • Lines 6-7: “airs / Wrap”
      • Lines 10-11: “calcium / Icicles”
      • Lines 17-18: “piranha  / Religion”
      • Lines 18-19: “drinking / Its”
      • Lines 20-21: “candle / Gulps”
      • Lines 24-25: “embryo / Remembering”
      • Lines 27-28: “clean / In”
      • Lines 29-30: “pain / You”
      • Lines 35-36: “stars / Plummet”
      • Lines 37-38: “mercuric  / Atoms”
      • Lines 38-39: “drip / Into”
      • Lines 40-41: “one / Solid”
    • Juxtaposition

      Where juxtaposition appears in the poem:
      • Lines 1-42
    • Metaphor

      Where metaphor appears in the poem:
      • Line 1: “I am a miner”
      • Lines 3-5: “tears / The earthen womb / Exudes from its dead boredom”
      • Lines 6-8: “Black bat airs / Wrap me, raggy shawls, / Cold homicides”
      • Lines 10-11: “calcium / Icicles”
      • Line 13: “Those holy Joes”
      • Lines 15-19: “they are panes of ice, / A vice of knives, / A piranha  / Religion, drinking / Its first communion out of my live toes”
      • Lines 40-41: “You are the one / Solid the spaces lean on, envious”
      • Line 42: “You are the baby in the barn”
    • Personification

      Where personification appears in the poem:
      • Lines 3-5: “tears / The earthen womb / Exudes from its dead boredom”
      • Lines 20-21: “The candle / Gulps”
      • Line 41: “the spaces lean on, envious”
    • Repetition

      Where repetition appears in the poem:
      • Lines 10-11: “Old cave of calcium / Icicles, old echoer”
      • Line 14: “the fish, the fish”
      • Lines 15-17: “panes of ice, / A vice of knives, / A piranha ”
      • Lines 23-24: “O love, how did you get here? / O embryo”
      • Line 31: “Love, love,”
      • Lines 32-33: “with roses, / With soft rugs”
      • Line 35: “Let the”
      • Line 37: “Let the”
      • Line 40: “You are the”
      • Line 42: “You are the”
    • Simile

      Where simile appears in the poem:
      • Line 9: “They weld to me like plums”
  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Vocabulary

    Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

    • Stalactites
    • Earthen
    • Raggy
    • Homicides
    • Weld
    • Holy Joes
    • First communion
    • Altitude
    • Hearten
    • Embryo
    • Victoriana
    • Mercuric
    Stalactites
    • (Location in poem: Line 2: “stalactites”)

      Icicle-like formations that hang from the ceilings of caves, created by dripping water that deposits minerals slowly over time.

  • Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Nick and the Candlestick”

    • Form

      This poem does not adhere to any traditional formal structure. However, each of its 14 stanzas contains three lines (tercets) and those lines are quite short.

      The poem can be seen as consisting of two halves—stanzas 1-7 describe the cave that the speaker moves about, while stanzas 8-14 address the speaker’s child. Further, the poem’s first half emphasizes the difficulties of motherhood, while the second celebrates its rewards (namely, the speaker's son). This structure gives equal attention to the positive and negative aspects of parenting, which makes their juxtaposition more apparent and suggests that motherhood is never all good or all bad. Rather, they are two sides of the same coin, so to speak—one always comes with the other.

      Due to the short length of its lines, the poem also appears long and narrow on the page, akin to a tunnel that runs through a cave. The high frequency of line breaks creates a fast-paced, choppy cadence. The resulting chaotic atmosphere reflects the speaker’s distress as well as the tension between motherhood’s positive and negative effects.

    • Meter

      This is a free verse poem and thus does not follow a consistent meter. Instead, its rhythm is erratic, changing frequently. In general, the lines are quite short and often enjambed, which results in a choppy cadence that starts and stops suddenly. Enjambment also creates anticipation, quickening the rhythm by encouraging the audience to read on. In a way, this reflects the speaker's actions themselves. She likens herself to a "miner" moving through a cave, and the poem's unpredictable rhythm evokes the dark twists and turns of such a journey.

    • Rhyme Scheme

      As the poem is written in free verse, it does not have any set rhyme scheme. In fact, it makes minimal use of true rhymes. However, much of the poem's stylistic impact stems from its play with sound—primarily through assonance and consonance, which often create slant rhymes (for more on this, head to the Poetic Devices section of this guide). These lend the poem a sense of musicality while keeping it unpredictable and loose.

      Interestingly, the poem's title does rhyme—"Nick and the Candlestick." The title also alludes to a classic nursery rhyme, "Jack Be Nimble," which goes:

      Jack be nimble,
      Jack be quick,
      Jack jump over
      The candlestick.

      As such, the title sets the reader up for a charming, jaunty verse, but what follows is much darker. Indeed, the poem's general musicality is at odds with its bleak and graphic imagery. This juxtaposition embodies the disparity between the expectation that motherhood is an innate, deeply fulfilling skill and the speaker's far more complicated experience.

  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Speaker

    • The speaker reveals very little information about herself over the course of the poem. The reader learns that she has recently given birth to a child named Nick, per the poem’s title. The speaker is often interpreted to be a persona of Plath’s, as her son, Nicholas, was born shortly before the poem was written. Taking this information together, one can infer that the speaker is female.

      Plath’s work tends to be autobiographical, and given the poem’s title, it’s reasonable to conclude that the speaker is close to Plath. However, the speaker communicates her experience of motherhood through imagery and metaphor, rather than referring to specific events. As such, the poem stands on its own as an expression of motherhood’s complex, taxing, and gratifying nature. Analysis need not rely on Plath’s biography.

      Instead, the speaker can be seen as new mother who struggles to navigate a now-unfamiliar body and changing home life. She walks through her home and experiences her physical form as if she is a miner scouring a dark cave. She is left feeling exhausted and disoriented. However, just when her inner resources seem to wear critically thin, the speaker turns to her son, who fills her with renewed hope and purpose.

  • “Nick and the Candlestick” Setting

    • The poem begins in a cold, dark cave. The light that guides the speaker through the cave is dying, suggesting that the setting is disorienting and difficult to traverse. She describes the cave as empty and deathlike with phrases such as “old echoer” and “cold homicides.” There are subtle hints that the poem takes place in the speaker’s womb or some external place where she feeds and looks after her child. For instance, the speaker calls the cave’s stalactites “calcium icicles”—picking out a mineral associated with milk—and “tears / The earthen womb exudes.”

      These references come into focus about halfway through the poem, when the speaker addresses her child as an “embryo” and asks “how did you get here?” Thus, the cave might be interpreted as the speaker’s womb. The speaker jumps around in time—from life with a new child to pregnancy and back again. That being said, the poem primarily takes place after her son’s birth, as the speaker’s womb is unfamiliar, empty, and calcified. Plus, she calls him a “baby” and speaks of “the pain you wake to.”

      The cave can also be seen as the home that the speaker shares with her child—“our cave.” As the speaker welcomes her son, the atmosphere softens to include “roses” and “soft rugs.” The speaker weaves through the cave as she walks down the hallways of her home, approaching her child’s nursery for feeding time. Although the audience’s understanding of the setting changes throughout the poem, all possible locales are encompassed by the overarching symbol of the cave. Its trajectory is consistent with the poem’s movement from a dark, wearisome portrayal of motherhood to one filled with love and promise.

      Further, the gradual unveiling of the setting puts the reader in the place of the speaker; the reader is “kept in the dark”, unaware of the poem’s true setting and subject for some time—much like the speaker, who feels disoriented and depleted until she finds guidance and clarity in her son.

  • Literary and Historical Context of “Nick and the Candlestick”

      Literary Context

      Plath wrote “Nick and the Candlestick” in the fall of 1962 shortly after the birth of her son, Nicholas. This was a highly productive period for Plath, who experienced a surge of creative energy in the months leading up to her death by suicide in February of 1963. It was during this time that Plath wrote many of the poems that would appear alongside “Nick and the Candlestick” in Ariel—her 1965 posthumous collection, which brought the late poet considerable fame.

      Plath’s late poems in particular are known for their fast pace and high energy, often pivoting from one strong image to another without warning. While this effect can be jarring, Ariel features an incisive, commanding voice whose authority and organic cadence steers readers through the text. In addition to “Nick and the Candlestick,” “Lady Lazarus” is a strong example of these qualities. Both contain tercets, or three-line stanzas, which appear throughout the collection. “Nick and the Candlestick” contains several other hallmarks of Plath’s writing, including a penchant for natural imagery (e.g. “earthen womb,” “the fish”) and references to nursery rhymes. Its thematic concerns—parent-child relationships, motherhood—are picked up in such poems as “Daddy” and “Morning Song.”

      Furthermore, this poem showcases Plath’s exploration of the confessional mode, inspired by such poets as Robert Lowell (“Waking in the Blue”) and Anne Sexton (“Her Kind”). Confessionalism—sometimes considered a movement and other times considered a style—is commonly known as “poetry of the ‘I’.” Confessional poetry features highly personal subject matter, including traumas and psychological afflictions, which were formerly masked by vague, flowery, and metaphorical language—when present in literature at all. Confessional poets, on the other hand, write openly about the darkness that haunts them, using specifics, naming names, and employing the rhythms of everyday speech. Sharon Olds is often cited as carrying on this tradition, with a particular nod to Plath in her poems about motherhood. In one such work simply titled “Son,” the speaker addresses her sleeping child, much like the speaker in “Nick in the Candlestick.”

      Historical Context

      The years after World War II (1939-1945) saw a renewed focus on family life as a source of security. As men returned home from war, birthrates ballooned during a “baby boom” that persisted into the 1960s. Mass media and popular culture of the day promoted an idealized family life that featured traditional gender roles and numerous children. Accordingly, women were defined in relation to their husbands and children—that is, as wives and mothers first. Women were also expected to find great joy and fulfillment in domestic life, supporting a long-held belief that a woman’s primary purpose is reproduction.

      “Nick and the Candlestick” can be seen as resisting or complicating such romanticized portrayals of motherhood. This poem celebrates the wonder, hope, and beauty that mothers experience regarding their children. But it also acknowledges the difficulties of motherhood—the exhaustion, a body that now feels empty and used-up, etc. Plath herself was dealing with a turbulent home life and a new relationship to parenting. Shortly before “Nick and the Candlestick” was written, Plath split with her husband, poet Ted Hughes, leaving her to care for their two children in their Devon, England home. This poem openly addresses her 9-month-old son, Nicholas, as well as her ambivalence about motherhood, chronicled in her letters from the period.

  • More “Nick and the Candlestick” Resources