The Art of Describing Suffering: "A Miserable Walk" by Pablo Neruda
The poem “A Miserable Walk” is written by Pablo Neruda. It’s a kind of narrative poem as it tells a story. The poem has a dark theme and is related to a political issue. During that time period, democracy was introduced and democrats formed the government whereas Pablo was a communist. Pablo used metaphor, repetition and simile to express his grief and loneliness. There is no rhyme scheme which depicts poet’s free situation. The tone of poem is aggressive and somehow depressing. Various poetic devices are used throughout the poem with a specific function such as imagery is used to show the dark theme of poem and aggressive mood of the poet and rest of poetic devices are used to increase the effect of imagery used in the entire poem. The speaker and the poet are the same person as poem depicts Neruda’s own ideas. Instead of sitting quietly poet wants to overcome the restrictions created by the present government.
By reading the poem one can conclude that poet was roaming freely and was noticing things around him such as gardens, elevators, houses, streets, stores, building and offices, etc. Pablo was fed with the idea of living which is depicted by the very first line of poem, “It so happens I am sick of being a man”. The only reason behind his sadness was the defeat of communist. Moreover, he used figurative language in phrase, “water of wombs and ashes” to define the unhygienic status of society he is living and his walk begins with the hatred feeling about everything. In the second and third paragraph, various phrases are used by poet to depict his sadness such as, “break into hoarse sobs”, “lie still like stones”. Moreover, because of the changes in his surrounding he started disliking his own body parts and was even annoyed by his shadow depicted by lines, “It so happen I am sick of my feet and my nails / and of my hair and my shadow”.
In the fourth paragraph, imagery is used by poet to represent his condition and a little positive attitude was shown as he was going to raise his voice against all odds and this can be concluded from the following lines, “still it would be marvellous / to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily / or kill a nun with a blow on the ear” whereas metaphor is used in lines, “I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark / insecure , stretched out, and shivering with sleep” to describe the mental stage of poet where he is feeling insecure and scared whereas by using imagery in following lines, “alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses / half frozen, dying of grief” poet consider death better than living, he don’t want more pain in his life and would be much happier to have death. He believes that these changes will lead to the end of human lives. The word “Monday” is used to display the staring of routine of poet and with that began the trauma poet goes through. In the following phrases, “blazes up like gasoline” and “and it howls like on its way like a wounded wheel” simile is used by poet to make his views more effective. In the following paragraph, “And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses / into hospitals where the bones fly out the window / into shoeshops that smell like vinegar / and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin”, after effects of his routine were described by which we can understand that his mental and physical health was degrading constantly.
All these happening remembered him of hell. He was receiving bad waves from everything including the people he met and things he watch on his way. The imagery indicated in these lines was dreadful and terrible. In the second last stanza, very strong metaphor is used by poet as “There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines / hanging over the doors of houses that I hate”. He felt disgusted by dreadful people and their deeds. According to poet, the whole environment has become unpolished by the urbanisation and there were several consequences indicated by poet in poem; one of them was represented by line, “there are mirrors / that ought to have wept from shame and terror”.
Overall Neruda expresses his anger over the changes in society and claims that those will lead toward the downfall of the world.
