The Role of the Nativity in Magi and Carol of the Brown King :: Magi Carol Brown King Essays

The Role of the Nativity in Magi and Carol of the browned magnate What were the Three Wise Men searching for when they followed the North Star? They were on the face of it proveing the Christ child, but they were also searching for the truth and business that he represents. Sylvia Plath in her poem Magi and Langston Hughes in his poem Carol of the Brown King discuss the merit of their respective minority groups through allusions to the nascence. Plath uses the jaunt to discuss both the ignorance of philosophers quest for the truth and its neglect of females, and Hughes uses the righteousness of the nativity to emphasize the importance of blacks. Plaths poem Magi ridicules the intellectuals conjecture-based search for truth They slue their star, these chartaceous godfolk (15). Instead of searching for the meaning to life through living, they seek it in inanimate books. Plath says of the abstracts, Theyre the real thing, all right the Good, the True, howalways, her other r eferences to them atomic number 18 contradictory, indicating that this is mockery (6). When she remarks that they hover like dull angels, she explains that they are not bollocks up with anything so vulgar as a nose or an eye, and yet, what is a face without features (1-2)? These abstracts are pure as boiled water, love little as the times table, but how could something so lifeless describe life (8)? By describing the dullness of the abstracts, Plath indicates their unsuitability to guide the search for truth. duration the abstracts lead the papery godfolk to the crib of some lamp-headed Plato, Plath leads her readers to the crib of a baby daughter (16). While the abstracts are pure as boiled water the infant is also pure the heavy notion of Evil attending her cot is less than a belly ache (7,13). However, although the theory-filled abstracts are loveless as the multiplication table, the child is nourished by Love the mother of milk, no theory (8,14). The abstracts truth is fo unded in theory the babys truth is founded in love. Plath is content that the papery godfolk do not seek the crib of her baby girl. What girl ever flourished in such company? (18). This question attacks the male-dominated hierarchy in which no women of her time prospered. The main message of Plaths poem is that we learn truth in the school of life, but why did she use a baby girl instead of a boy?