Neruda

Nobel Prize winner poet Pablo Neruda advocated for social justice. His poetry often addressed social issues within a larger community (Puchner 1421). His poem, “Walking Around” makes a statement on urban life. It “demonstrates Neruda’s turn toward public subject matter… as a description of urban life and the sufferings of the poor” (Puchner 1422).

The poem conveys a man who is tired of living life in his run down city. Ironically, he wants to leave it but feels trapped: “It happens that I go into the tailor’s shops and the movies  / all shriveled up, impenetrable, like a felt swan / navigating on a water of origin and ash” (Neruda lns. 2-4). He tries to traverse away from the city, but its walls hold him in. It seems this inability to escape begins to drive him mad. He “sobs out loud,” wishes to “knock a nun stone dead,” and run through the streets “with a green knife / shouting until I died of cold” (Neruda 5, 14, 16-17). The city’s dreadful effects have rubbed off on the people and their attitudes. Likewise, the life he experiences in the city wears him down so much that he is “tired of being a man” (Neruda 9). If only he could escape his life and find beauty again.

As he continues to wander the streets, he realizes the city is full of capitalism (“establishments” and “merchandise”) and ugliness (“cellar full of corpses”) (Neruda 7-8, 24). If he does not soon escape its materialism and horridness, he will be swallowed up by it. Yet as he ages, along with the city, he gets closer to death and destruction, similar to his surroundings.

Neruda’s poem “Walking Around” makes a powerful statement on feeling trapped in a society that does not appreciate beauty or human existence. The city instead values those in society who can afford to have dreams and live above the poor, dirty reality.

Works Cited

Neruda, Pablo. “Walking Around.” Trans. W.S. Merwin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner et al. Shorter 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 1423-1424. Print.

Puchner, Martin, Gen ed. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Shorter Third ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.