The role of the Nativity in "Magi" and "Carol of the Brown King"What were the Magi looking for when they followed the North Star? They were obviously looking for the Christ child, but they were also looking for the truth and justice 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 nativity. Plath uses the journey to discuss both the ignorance of philosophers' search for "truth" and its neglect of women, and Hughes uses the righteousness of the nativity to emphasize the importance of blacks. Plath's poem "Magi" ridicules the intellectual theory-based search for truth: "They confuse their star, these paper deities" (15). Instead of seeking the meaning of life through living, they seek it in inanimate books. Plath says of the abstracts, “They are the real thing, all right: the Good, the True,” however, her other references to them are contradictory, indicating that it is a mockery (6). When he observes that they "hover like dull angels," he explains that they are not tainted by 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, loveless as the multiplication table,” but how could something so lifeless describe life (8)? Describing the dullness of abstracts, Plath points to their inadequacy to guide the search for truth. While the abstracts lead the "paper gods" to "some Plato's cradle with the lamp-shape," Plath leads her readers to the cradle of a child. girl (16). While the abstracts are "pure as boiled water", the child is also pure: "the heavy idea of ​​Evil frequenting its cradle is less than a stomach ache" (7.13). However, although theory-filled abstracts are “loveless as the multiplication table,” the child is nourished by “Love the mother of milk, no theory” (8.14). The truth of abstracts is grounded in theory; the truth of the child is founded in love. Plath is happy that the "paper people" are not looking for her baby girl's crib. “What girl ever thrived in such company?” (18). This question attacks the male-dominated hierarchy in which no woman of her time thrived. The main message of Plath's poem is that we learn the truth at the school of life, but why did she use a girl instead of a boy??