By Candlelight - Sylvia Plath

Don't hold expectations,

not even from heroes.

"...To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls."

Hercules is meant to be a hero in Greek

mythology and even English Literature, in the same way the speaker's husband and the child's father was suppose to be. A father is suppose to be a hero figure for the family, keep them safe, however the father of the child has failed, in both obligations, as a husband and dad

"...Of what green stars can make it to our gate. I hold you on my arm.

It is very late.

The dull bells tongue the hour.

The mirror floats us at one candle power."

Do not hold expectations because

then you will be let down, and once down then you are deep within the soil, already buried.

Evidence

"...While the brass man

Kneels, back bent, as best he can

Hefting his white pillar with the light

That keeps the sky at bay,

The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!"

The Purpose

Works Cited

Van, Nam. "The Lion of Nemea & Hercules." Flickr. Yahoo!, 01 May 2007. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/namvan/479063128/>.

"NEMEA â Mythology, Archaeological Sites." Athens Tour Greece NEMEA Mythology Archaeological Sites Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.athenstourgreece.com/tours-step-1/nemea-mythology-archaeological-sites/>.

Plath, Sylvia, and Ted Hughes. The Collected Poems. New York: HarperPerennial, 1992. Print.

"This is winter, this is night, small love --

A sort of black horsehair,

A rough, dumb country stuff

Steeled with the sheen

Of what green stars can make it to our gate. I hold you on my arm.

It is very late.

The dull bells tongue the hour.

The mirror floats us at one candle power.

- Symbolism

- Assonance

- Caesura

-Imagery --> tone

1. Assonance - repetition of "i" - dull depressing setting is created right away, this gets the reader into the specific mood and atmosphere

2.Caesura - Hyphens --> absence of majestic love --> loveless child is born (black horsehair). --> no energy, dies.

3.) Symbolism - Green stars --> symbolic of envious human beings as green does connote to jealousy, "make it to our gate" may be heavens gate.

4. Imagery - personification - "dull bells tongue"

tongue --> diction, heavy dense word. Tone created --> upsetting.

Background Information

By Candlelight was written in 1962 the year in which Sylvia Plath bore a son, Nicolas Hughes.

Plath had a miscarriage in which she lost a child

Plath committed suicide in her own home on Febuary 11 1963

Plath's daughter

Frieda was born

- Enjambment

- Assonance

- Imagery -->tone

"This is the fluid in which we meet each other,

This haloey radiance that seems to breathe

And lets our shadows wither

Only to blow

Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.

One match scratch makes you real."

1960

1961

1962

1963

During this time Plath and Ted Hughes had separated due to the fact that Hughes had an affair with their friend Assia Wevill.

"While the brass man

Kneels, back bent, as best he can

Hefting his white pillar with the light

That keeps the sky at bay,

The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!

He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --

Poor heirloom, all you have,

At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,

No child, no wife.

Five balls! Five bright brass balls!

To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls."

By Candlelight was written on the 24th of October 1962:

Plath was deeply depressed during this time period as it was Winter, she was living in London with two young kids and the electricity kept going out in which she had to use a number of candlesticks.

1. Allusion - Hercules

2. Father of Child

--> brass = candlelight colors

--> father in sex position, embarrassment, hiding something.

--> New child born "sky light"

3. Child and speaker die "sack of black"

4.Heirloom

5. Buried under heels

6. Brass balls --> father plays

with mothers love.

7. Sky falls, other woman's

child born, is the last day on

earth for the speaker and

her child.

We = Mother and God finally meeting

"Haloey" - may suggest holy... spelled that way because Plath may refuse to believe that God is holy as in Lady Lazarus she does make God equivalent to Lucifer.

Enjambment - Blow --> God's power to easily take life and give

This upsets speaker "violent giants" as its so simple for God.

- Symbolism

- Allusion

- Enjambment ->

imagery -> tone

In Greek mythology Hercules is to be known as a hero and here is being compared to the father of the child. A father is suppose to be a hero figure for the family, keep them safe, however the father of the child has failed, in both obligations, as a husband and dad

By Candlelight

By Candlelight Dissection

By Candlelight

- Sylvia Plath

This is winter, this is night, small love --

A sort of black horsehair,

A rough, dumb country stuff

Steeled with the sheen

Of what green stars can make it to our gate.

I hold you on my arm.

It is very late.

The dull bells tongue the hour.

The mirror floats us at one candle power.

This is the fluid in which we meet each other,

This haloey radiance that seems to breathe

And lets our shadows wither

Only to blow

Them huge again, violent giants on the wall.

One match scratch makes you real.

At first the candle will not bloom at all --

It snuffs its bud

To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.

I hold my breath until you creak to life,

Balled hedgehog,

Small and cross. The yellow knife

Grows tall. You clutch your bars.

My singing makes you roar.

I rock you like a boat

Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor,

While the brass man

Kneels, back bent, as best he can

Hefting his white pillar with the light

That keeps the sky at bay,

The sack of black! It is everywhere, tight, tight!

He is yours, the little brassy Atlas --

Poor heirloom, all you have,

At his heels a pile of five brass cannonballs,

No child, no wife.

Five balls! Five bright brass balls!

To juggle with, my love, when the sky falls.

At first the candle will not bloom at all --

It snuffs its bud

To almost nothing, to a dull blue dud.

- Tercet

- Caesura

"I hold my breath until you creak to life, Balled hedgehog,

Small and cross. The yellow knife

Grows tall. You clutch your bars.

My singing makes you roar.

I rock you like a boat

Across the Indian carpet, the cold floor..."

- Imagery --> Tone

Simile

- Symbolism

- Enjambment

In connection to the background, Plath had a miscarridge in 1961 in which the same scenario takes places.

Tercet - 3 line stanza, an end to a point or idea, in the some way there was a sudden end to a child's life

Speaker: Mother

Audience: Child, God

- Symbolism and Enjambment : Balled Hedgehog, Yellow Knife

Enjambment --> focus on the word Hedgehog --> explain why balled and what this says about the child in the bigger picture, (deprived of protection (spikes and fatherly))

- Simile --> imagery --> violent, harsh, brutal --> tone is accusing angry --> may show distance or gay or hollowness between mother and child (Indian - foreigners, cold- on cold grounds)

What meets the eye

UNCOVERING THE LAYERS

LITERATURE MEANING OF BY CANDLELIGHT

The hour is very late as the mother holds a child in her arms. The mother is breastfeeding her child in the beginning of stanza two. The candle then starts to "wither" and is blown out, however it is lit again. Sometimes, on the other hand, the candle refuses to light. Suddenly, a mother is giving birth to her child at the beginning of stanza 4, who then comes to life as a "balled hedgehog" angry and upset. The fire's intensity starts to increase as the child clutches the crib wanting to escape while the mother sings and rocks the crib trying to calm the child down. A brass man then is bending over, and suddenly it is black and tight everywhere. Under the brass man's heel is a pile of five brass cannon balls which he juggles with "as the sky falls."