Night Sweat Flashcards
Summary (3)
-Vivid nightmarish portrait of anxiety & self-doubt & the toll these emotions can have on a relationship
-speaker keeps waking up w/ sweat bc of his fear of not being able to write
-he calls his wife to relieve him of his burdens
Title: Night Sweat
Extended metaphor for self-doubt & anxiety
1-3 (3)
Work-table, litter, books and standing lamp,
plain things, my stalled equipment, the old broom –
but I am living in a tidied room,
1: speaker dives into list of objects w/out introduction:
–> establishes overwhelming & confusing atmosphere
–> asyndeton (not using conjunctions) adds to anxious atmosphere
‘Stalled equipment’:
–> first indicator of his inability to write
–> ‘equipment’ is a metaphor of his mind, which isn’t working as it should, hence why it’s ‘stalled’ (motionless)
–> writer’s block
His once messy room is now ‘Tidied’ bc he hasn’t been able to do the messy work of creating
4-5(3)
for ten nights now I’ve felt the creeping damp
float over my pyjamas’ wilted white…
‘Creeping damp’ : represents night sweats
‘Float’ : describes how easily anxiety dominates him + his space, like a ghostly presence
‘Wilted white’:
-sweat soaks pijamas to the point they seem to wilt
-adj. choice ‘wilted’ suggests sweat is suffocating
imagery related to liquid ‘float’ ‘embalms’ ‘wet’ ‘streams’: suggests clothes sticking to his frame
6-7 (3)
Sweet salt embalms me and my head is wet,
everything streams and tells me this is right;
def embalms = covered in fluid used to preserve dead bodies
Sweat metaphorically ‘embalms’ him:
-imagery of suffocation, death & drowning:
–> reveals seriousness of night sweats
–> whatever is causing it threatens to end speaker’s life
-anxiety engulfs him
-embalming suggests writer’s block has coated + killed speaker
Sibilance: sinister hissing sounds mirror speaker’s anxiety creeping through the room
4 (8-10
my life’s fever is soaking in night sweat –
one life, one writing! But the downward glide
and bias of existing wrings us dry –
Life’s fever–> Implies speaker has burning passion for writing, but w/ no release for that passion, his body becomes drenched in sweat
! Caesura, emphasizes writing
‘One’ repetition: suggests life & writing are of equal importance to him
metaphor ‘downward glide’ : suggests life has a physical shape, which drags the speaker down
Enjambment of next line brings ‘downward glide’ to life
(11-12) 1
always inside me is the child who died,
always inside me is his will to die –
‘Child who died’: child = creativity/imagination –> metaphorical ‘death’ of his imagination
13-14
one universe, one body… in this urn
the animal night sweats of the spirit burn.
‘One’ repetition –> speker’s universe is his body since he is trapped in the limits of his mind
‘Animal’ quality of these sweats make them seem wild+uncontrollable
–> adds to overwhelming nightmarish atmosphere
18-19
I dabble in the dapple of the day,
a heap of wet clothes, seamy, shivering,
da alliteration –> playful tone + lightens language –> suggests release of nightmarish world (bc of wife)
Wet clothes: speaker IS those wet clothes
Metaphor: speaker not only surrounded by product of writers block, he has merged w/ it
(He is defined by his night sweat + creative anxiety)
22-23 (3)
my wife… your lightness alters everything,
and tears the black web from the spider’s sack,
Entrance of wife = TONAL SHIFT
Wifes’s presence wakes him from his darkness + shows him light (wife is his light)
brief break from dark world of speaker’s anxiety
caesura –> implies importance of wife’s entrance
Metaphor 2nd line: wife clears away dark cobwebs of his anxiety
24-26 (3)
as your heart hops and flutters like a hare.
Poor turtle, tortoise, if I cannot clear
the surface of these troubled waters here,
1st line : simile
Speaker is filled w/ heaviness (he is a ‘heap of wet clothes’ / ‘leaded’ eyelids / constantly sinking along the ‘downward glide’ of life
Wife not weighed down, was a hare (light + free), but husbands burdens slow her down, turtle
Hare –> turtle : weight of speaker’s troubles transforms her, slowing her down + changing her identity
3rd line: speaker’s anxiety returns bc feels guilty of pain he is causing his wife
+ worried he won’t overcome his mental struggles –> ‘trapped’ below ‘the surface’ of his anxiety
END
absolve me, help me, Dear Heart, as you bear
this world’s dead weight and cycle on your back.
Speaker feels his lack of creative energy is a punishment he has dumped on his wife
(rather than the solitary torment that dominates start of poem)
Symbol of drowning
Symbolizes not being able to escape speaker’s creative blockage + self-doubt
Eg:
-embalms
-float
-clear surface of troubled waters
Structure
1) no structure / lose pentameter : reflects speaker’s scattered thoughts + why he can’t write
2) wife appears = iambic pentameter (stable meter) :
Suggests wife offers stability to his otherwise nightmarish world
Themes (2)
Creative anxiety & self-doubt
Power + pain of relationships
