For EACH of the texts, analyse how the writer used symbolism and/or figurative language to develop an important idea.

The idea of death is common to the short stories “The Silk” by Joy Cowley and “The Bath” by Janet Frame. Both writers explore this idea through symbolism and figurative language which creates imagery in the reader’s mind. “The Silk” finds a woman struggling to deal with the death of her husband, but ultimately presents death as hopeful, hinting at the possibility of a pleasant afterlife while “The Bath” find no hope at all as the eponymous bath becomes a symbol for a coffin, and feelings of loneliness and helplessness overwhelm the main character of the story, an old woman who finds herself stuck in the bath. To portray these contrasting perspectives on death, Cowley uses symbolism and Frame uses symbolism, metaphor and simile.

“The Silk” tells the story of Herb and Amy Blackie, in the days preceding Herb’s death. Both know his days are numbered, but while Herb seems to accept his inevitable passing, Amy struggles to come to terms with the fact that she is about to be without her life partner forever. She makes Herb’s pyjamas out of a special silk, an heirloom special to the couple that has belonged to them for many years. It is decorated with pleasant gardens that include “proud birds, irradescent blue” and trees that “swayed towards rippling water”. The blossoming gardens of the silk, bustling with life, are a symbol for their strong, loving relationship, which has itself blossomed over the years. Because of the strength of their relationship, Amy finds it difficult to deal with the idea of death.  However, at the end of the story when Herb has passed away, Cowley hints at the possibility that the couple might find themselves together again in some sort of afterlife. Looking at the silk once more, Amy notices something she has never seen before – “a man” who was “standing with one arm outstretched on the highest span between two islands”. This pattern is new on the silk, and Amy has never seen it before. She then realises that the figure is “beckoning to her”. This figure is symbolic of Herb in the afterlife, beckoning to Amy to join him. In this was the gardens of the silk become the Blackie’s afterlife. This leaves us with a lasting feeling of hope that makes us feel like Amy will eventually be reunited with Herb in the gardens of the silk. We feel like perhaps, death is not the end, but instead a new beginning.

This is, however, not the way Janet Frame sees death in “The Bath”. In the story, an elderly woman living by herself in a Dunedin house after the death of her husband 17 years earlier, decides to have a bath, as she is planning to visit her husband’s grave the next day. Unfortunately, she discovers she cannot get out of the bath and becomes very fearful, realising that there is no one to come to her aid and that if she could not get out herself she would die there. Getting into the bath is portrayed as a frightening experience through a simile, as the rim of the bath is compared to “the edge of a cliff with a deep drop below it into the sea”. The reader is shown a glimpse of life through the woman’s eyes, as tasks that we find simple and routine become difficult and painful. When she has finished cleaning herself, she again begins to feel frightened at the impending task of getting out of the bath. Frame uses a metaphor to show this, saying that “the flannel too, and the soap, were frail flotsam to cling to in hope of being borne to safety”. Again, the tiny bath is compared to the vast expanses of the ocean, as the flannel and soap become floating wreckage to cling to in hope of finding rescue. However, she soon realises she has to try get out of the bath by herself. After many failed attempts, and half an hour of time, she realises “If I shout for help”, that “no one will hear me. No one in the world will hear me”. As she realises she could die in the bath if she is incapable of getting out, she has a “strange feeling of being under the earth, of a throbbing in her head like wheels going over the earth above her”. Thus the bath becomes a symbol for a coffin, as lying in the bath, the woman feels like she is buried underneath the earth like she would be if she was in a coffin. She feels “imprisoned”, as the feelings of loneliness and helplessness overwhelm her. She has been without her husband for 17 long years, and her body has slowly become more and more useless. Ultimately it is implied that the woman would rather be dead than continue living like this, but the loneliness and frightening experiences involved with the bath still cause her to be afraid of the idea of dying.

In these short stories by two of New Zealand’s foremost writers, two sides of the idea of death are explored. Through symbolism and figurative language, “The Silk” explores death as a natural, peaceful, and ultimately hopeful idea, all the while hinting at the possibility of an afterlife in which Herb and Amy can be reunited in. Contrastingly, “The Bath” takes a darker approach, portraying an elderly woman who is so afraid of death that she continues a lonely, helpless existence which culminates in an incident in which, stuck in and unable to get out of her bath, she realises that her death is impending and could come at any time, even right there in that bath, if she could not get out of it. These two very different ways of looking at death provide an interesting contrast to each other , and in the end, it is up to each individual to accept death as it comes, in their own personal way.