Neruda

In his poem “Walking Around,” Pablo Neruda expresses both a disdain for life and the conflicting desire to still exist. He contrasts images of death with a continual sense of motion and moving around, even emphasized in the name of the poem, which matches the sense that although one may grow tired of life, it continues on. Although man may recognize and despise the difficulties of life, he carries on with alternating hope and disillusionment.

            Neruda’s speaker confides “I am tired of being a man,” following his statement with regular places people travel to: “tailor’s shops and the movies […] barber shops” (lns. 1-2, 5). Though the locations are normal, it is perhaps the routine nature that is inescapable and tiresome. This goes a step further with the speaker’s saying he is “tired of […his] feet and […] nails/ and […] hair and […] shadow” (9-10). The sense of disillusionment moves beyond the world around and comes back to the individual himself, as no longer wants to be associated with parts of himself. There are then juxtapositions that contradict the presumed status quo, which are the first images to interest or excite the speaker. He would feel pleasure “to scare a notary with a cut lily/ or knock a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear” (13-14). While the speaker is not happy with his reality, the idea of breaking with convention is diverting. The notary, someone associated with drudgery, contrasts with the image of the lily, but that it is a “cut lily” adds more danger to the description. Subsequently, blowing on a nun’s ear contradicts the vows of chastity and purity, evoking a sense of the physical pleasures of life. In these contemplations is the reader shown reasons that people continue on—love, pleasure, excitement. However, these images are also illusions. If they occurred, views of the world would be unstable and inaccurate. Despite the distracting illusions, the poem concludes with images of “courtyards hung with clothes on wires/ underpants, towels, and shirts which weep/ slow dirty tears” (43-45). The reality of the world is bleak and unromantic, which is sad—this is the perception of the city. Though there is potential, it remains unfulfilled, and so there is a sense of failure or lack of fruition.

            Daily life remains a grind, tedious and onerous in the rhythm of the city. Though full of life, it is not idyllic or pleasant. While “Walking Around,” the speaker is not in a pasture or garden, but in the thick of life. It is predictable and poor, leading to an even more dismal end of decay and rot.