Pablo Neruda’s work “Walking Around” depicts the intimate closeness of material objects and the new and exciting modern forms of entertainments as negative aspects detracting from a “real” existence. The dense nature of modern life, the objects that fill the once empty or natural spaces, and entertainment available have sucked the life out of those who inhabit this city. What’s left behind is a cold, depressing, place inhabited by beings living a lesser form of life. If this written work were a painting it would be ashy grey, various shades of darker blue pieced by yellow moments of artistic genius. It is a work that simultaneously states the thoughts and positions of mankind in the modernist world and the undeniable notion that something different has happened to the natural state of human affairs. Only through escape from “normal” human existence can one be rid of the terrible conditions presented.
Material goods have always been used to help people show their association or disassociation with various groups and ideas. From ancient rings of iron and sea shells for ornamentation, to huge powdered French hair, to baggy jeans, to an Italian made sports car, each are material goods that help people to determine where in society they think they are. Also, this may help others determine where these people are along the social or financial ladders as well. Extending this notion from an individual to a macroscopic scale is also possible. For cities or nations with movie theaters, tanks, planes, elevators, and huge shopping stores look much more appealing than a hut in the dessert. Yet Neruda realized that facades are no indication of what lies inside of something. The shiny lights, the exciting distractions, and the purchasing power may appear appealing from the outside but the poems speaker tells part of the story from another side. A darker side that hides just behind the façade of the modern world.
Neruda plays on the human tendency to judge by an objects surface value when describing his view of the city. The poems speaker relays their dislike of the modern world in the very first line of the work stating, “It happens that I am tired of being a man” (Neruda ln. 1). The speaker’s disdain really picks up in the second stanza of the work. While in the first stanza the speaker merely dips their toes in the loathsome state of the city, in the second they jump right in. Neruda writes,
The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud.
I want nothing but the repose either of stones or of wool,
I want to see no more establishments, no more gardens,
Nor merchandise, nor glasses, nor elevators. (Neruda lns. 5-8)
It is these things, material things and modernist ideas that make us “human or civilized.” Yet the speaker has a disdain for them. In some unspoken way they are tearing out the soul of the animal that is man; leaving them less human. These objects civilizing-nature brings the speaker great anguish. So much pain that they wish to exit the existence of the human condition. It’s only the old ways of “stone or of wool” that can bring some modicum of comfort to the narrator’s mind (Neruda ln. 6). The poem’s speaker once more writes, “It happens that I am tired of being a man” (Neruda ln.11). The speaker continues on with the disparate state of life in the city.
The juxtaposition of material goods and emotions displays how such things have come to take on emotional tendencies of their own. Much like contemporary television advertisements trying to associates their products with positive emotions Neruda’s imagery associates such objects with negativity. The last two stanza’s of the work exhibit this in poignant ways. Images of death, decay, grotesqueness, are placed on top of normal everyday things. For example the references to birds, intestines, doors, teeth, houses, coffee pot, umbrellas, navels, and poisons are all included in a one stanza frame. Taken by themselves they aren’t particularly interesting or grotesque but when combined with the speaker’s disposition they become something altogether different. The stanza reads as follows:
There are birds the colour of Sulphur, and horrible intestines
hanging from the doors of the houses which I hate,
there are forgotten sets of teeth in a coffee-pot,
there are mirrors
which should have wept with shame and horror,
there are umbrellas all over the place, and poisons, and navels. (Neruda lns. 34-39).
The speaker describes the horror and “truth” that lay behind each of these objects. Inside of each one a tiny piece of humanity digs in and dies there. No longer are things simple objects but objects only in relation to the minds in which they are viewed. Like many modernist wordsmiths Neruda is able to capture the subjective nature of existence through a discontented speaker. Objects are reflected in opposition to how they are presented in a “normal” content view of things. It is through the lens of the speaker that the image of the modern city becomes more rounded and understandable. This is where one facet of Neruda’s poetic genius lies, in the ability to show another side of the everyday experience.
Works Cited
Neruda, Pablo. “Walking Around”. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Shorter Third Edition, Two- Volume Set. W.W. Norton. Ed. M Puchner. 2012. 1423-1424. Print.
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