You may be wondering why the title of this blogpost is in Italian, and I am here to tell you why. Over the past few days, my CI class has been watching a movie called “Il Postino” or “The Postman.” It is about a man named Mario who becomes the postman for communist poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda was exiled from his home country Chile, so he had to reside in a small village in Italy. Everyday Mario would bring Neruda his mail, and everyday Neruda would brush Mario off with a quick “thank you” and a tip. Mario was determined to get to know Neruda and understand his poetry for he was very interested in understanding why Neruda had so much power over the written text. In the beginning Mario is “the man who came to dinner: He arrives at Neruda’s gate, and in a sense never seems to leave” (Roger Ebert). When Pablo finally befriends Mario, he teaches him about Poetry, specifically metáfori. Mario meets this beautiful young woman named Beatrice Russo and wants to win her over with his poetry and metaphors. He begins to write her letters and poems (some his and some were Neruda’s). One metaphor he used that was significant to me, was when he described her smile as “a butterfly spreading it’s wings.” I found this to be profoundly beautiful because butterflies are so delicate yet so prominent, that her smile must have been the most beautiful thing in the world. In a Reel Views review, James Berardinelli makes an astute observation. He states, “Mario has the heart of a poet, but little talent with words” (Reel Views). Although he may have little talent with words in the beginning, he makes up for it with this quote, “the whole world is a metaphor for something” (Il Postino). Although Mario may seem like a simple man, he has profound thoughts and a kind heart. The affect Neruda had on Mario in the movie helped him grow from a fisherman’s son to a poet.
Since I’m already on the topic of Pablo Neruda, how about I talk about some of his metaphors? Neruda is one of the most talented poets I have ever had the privilege to read. Although his poems may seem simple to the naked eye, the deeper meanings in each line amazes me. In his poem “Walking Around,” Neruda voices how sad he is with his life.
“I don’t want so much misery.
I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief” (Walking Around).
To my limited understanding of poetry, this means to me that he does not want to end up with the same fate as every man.
In Neruda’s poem “I Like For You To Be Still,” he is speaking to a person about what he loves about them.
“You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid” (I Like For You To Be Still).
Neruda uses the stars to describe the person he is speaking to. Beautiful yet distant.
In the novel I read for my CI, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez uses metaphors to enhance the readers experience. In the beginning of the novel, José Arcadio Buendía is ahead of his time with the ideas he has. A Metaphor that really stood out to me in the novel was the dream José Arcadio Buendía had about the houses with walls of mirrors. I thought this could mean that the mirrors reflected who you were, and also didn’t let you escape that fact. Another Metaphor that stood out to me was when José Arcadio (José Arcadio Buendía’s son) was about to have sex with a gypsy girl. “She was a languid little frog, with incipient breasts and legs so thin they did not even match the size of José Arcadio’s arms, but she had a decision and a warmth that compensated for her fragility” (García Marquez 33). My first reaction to this sentence was “gross!” But then I stepped back and read it again. The way García Marquez describes the girl is a bit disturbing, but the detail he puts into it is magnificent.
The way each author uses metaphors to strengthen the different stories fascinates me and never ceases to make me want to read more. I had never read anything by Pablo Neruda before this class, and I will definitely continue reading his work.
