" Deeply ambivalent also is the image of fire in carnival. It is a fire
that simultaneously destroys and renews the world. In European
carnivals there was almost always a special structure (usually a vehicle
adorned with all possible sorts of gaudy carnival trash) called "hell,"
and at the close of carnival this "hell" was triumphantly set on fire
(sometimes this carnival "hell" was ambivalently linked with a horn
of plenty). Characteristic is the ritual of "moccoli" in Roman carnival:
each participant in the carnival carried a lighted candle ("a candle
stub"), and each tried to put out another's candle with the cry "Sia
ammazzato!" ("Death to thee!"). In his famous description of Roman
carnival (in Italienische Reise)h Goethe, striving to uncover the deeper
meaning behind carnival images, relates a profoundly symbolic
little scene: during "moccoli" a boy puts out his father's candle with
the cheerful carnival cry: "Sia ammazzato il Signore Padre!" [that is,
"death to thee, Signor Father!"] "

― Mikhail Bakhtin , Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics