Stevens 1

Autumn Stevens
Mrs. Curmano
Freshman English Honors
25 January 2015

Title: The title of Pablo Nerudas poem The Light Wraps You indicates the metaphor of life
surrounding a being; possibly symbolizing a newborn or loved one. The light obviously
represents life, positivity, or warmth while wraps depicts the surrounding of the you in the
poem--possibly the image of a blanket or surrounding object.

Paraphrase:
Stanza 1

The flame that will perish surrounds someone. A sad, mourning person (that is
hard to see) stands against the elderly twighlight inducers that centers around the
person of the poem.

Stanza 2

The poet is speechless as they reside lonely in the midst of someones death.
Many alive subjects surround the dead. Someone inherits the death (the dead
person) that day.

Stanza 3

A branch with fruit falls from the sky onto someone (most likely a woman)
wearing a dark piece of clothing. Darkness fills the subjects soul--not body. The
things that were previously hidden in the subjects soul are now revealed to the
mourning people. A new born item is now taking nourishment from the dead.

Stanza 4

The subject of the poem is magnificent, magnetic, and produces many

offspring. They are bound to the cycle that brings them through black and gold.
The subject of the poem shall rise and owns something that is full of life but
drowning in sadness.

Connotation: Neruda uses a vast amount of poetic devices and figurative language. It seems as
though every word has a hidden meaning behind it. He prefers the usage of symbolism and
metaphors (possibly allusions, but it was challenging for me to decipher them).
Metaphor: (Line 3): Neruda says propellers of the twighlight. I decipher that
this literally means the object(s) that induce twighlight--notice the odd spelling--further
being a metaphor for the person or thing prompting life and death; something that
brought death to the subject of the poem. (Line 10, 11): The phrase The great roots of
night grow suddenly from your soul is a metaphor for his mothers death of tuberculosis.
The great roots of night symbolize death--or the bacteria that induces tuberculosis--and
grew suddenly from [his mothers] soul.
Parallelism: (Line 15): The phrase Oh magnificent and fecund and magnetic
slave uses parallelism because of the repeated use of the word and. Normal

Stevens 2
grammatical functions would say Oh magnificent, fecund, and magnetic slave using
commas to separate the adjectives. Neruda, being a poet, uses and instead.
Symbolism: (Line 16): Neruda says the circle that moves in turn through black
and gold to symbolize the repeated cycle of life and death. The usage of the word gold
is implying precious [metal]; symbolizing life and purity. The use of black as a
contradiction or opposite to gold represents death, stability, and revealance.
Paradox: (Line 17-19): The phrase lead and possess a creation so rich in life that
its flowers perish and it is full of sadness is--Im 89 percent sure--a paradox. The idea
this newborn is so rich in life gives the reader a feeling of positivity and warmth. In
contradiction, all of the life makes the newborn perish or die suddenly. Altogether,
because the newborn is so full of life and vibrant, it dies. A very questionable and
conflicting statement, thus making it a paradox.

Attitude: Neruda withholds a mournful tone throughout the poem displayed in the use of the
words alone, ruined, night, blue, black, perish, and sadness. He is obviously grieving and
describing the death of a dear individual. He uses the words fire, nourishment, magnificent,
creation, rich, and life to give light to the beauty of the life of the subject of the poem and its
offspring to depict an appreciative and once positive tone. Neruda gives the feeling of anger near
the end of the poem when she uses the words slave and takes.

Shift: The main shift in Pablo Nerudas poem The Light Wraps You is between line 14 and 15
or stanza 3 and 4 from mournful to angry. The transition between using words like ruined, alone
and night to slave, black, and rise portray so.

Title: The title The Light Wraps You indicates the metaphor of life surrounding Pablo
Nerudas mother. The allegory of Nerudas mothers death is the essence of the poem and the
title conveys the meaning that life surrounded his mother and him--even though he will forever
be in sadness because of his mothers passing while he was young.

Theme: Pablo Nerudas poem entitled The Light Wraps You conveys the idea that one will
always be a slave of the circle of life, and escaping its grasp is possible only through love.