Learning Targets
1. I can analyse the central
theme of a poem and explain its relevance to life.
2. I can describe the message
that the poet wants to pass to the reader.
3. I can identify different
figures of speech and explain why the poet has used them.
4. I can identify the symbols and
metaphors used by the poet.
5. I can describe the poet’s
style of writing and the way the poem has been written.
6. I can support my observations
with evidence from the text.
Central Theme
In this poem, Pablo Neruda talks about the necessity of quiet introspection and creating a feeling of mutual understanding
among human beings.
The Poet’s Message
The poet's expectation from his readers is also contained in the second stanza when he says, "let's not speak...let's stop...and not move".The poet’s message is that all of
us should take time from our busy schedules to meditate, introspect and observe
moments of stillness so that we can foster sound mental health. It is important
to pause, sit quietly in order to take stock of how we are. Simply working
without any break, running like rats in a rat race will only kill us
emotionally, mentally and physically.
Important Symbols and
Metaphors
The number twelve: The passage of time, stillness of time when the hour, minute and seconds hands come together, unity, twelve months in a year, twelve divisions on a clock face.
Whales: Nature, nature that has been suppressed.
The man gathering salt: Working class, people who labour with their hands
Green wars: Biological warfare, destruction of nature
Wars with Gas: Chemical warfare
Wars with fire: Conventional warfare
Victory with no survivors: Atomic warfare, War with WMDs. (also a contradiction).
Dormancy and Hibernation: Symbol for a period of dormancy in trees, seeds, animals. Trees shed their leaves only to grow them back in the spring season. Seeds lie dormant till it rains from a dormant state they become active, growing into plants and trees.
What does the poet
want the Reader to do?
In the second stanza the poet
states ‘Let’s not speak in any language, let’s stop one second, and not move
our arms so much.’ ‘Arms’ here is a pun, it means human arms and weapons. He wants his readers to keep still, pause and not to speak. In other words, he wants his readers to keep quiet.
How will keeping
quiet Help us?
There are multiple benefits of
keeping quiet according to the poet. The first benefit would be, according to
the third stanza, that ‘we would all be together’. In other words, all humanity
would be united. In the fourth stanza, he states that ‘whales’ would not be
hunted, and ‘the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.’ In other words, the man gathering salt would have time to tend his
wounds. In the fifth stanza, the poet suggests that keeping quiet would bring to
an end all kinds of war. It would promote pacifism and peace throughout the
world. It would defeat the evil designs of people in power, ‘Those who prepare…wars’.
It would bring an end to the threat of biological, chemical, atomic and conventional
warfare. In the sixth stanza, ‘a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of
never understanding ourselves’ because of which we are ‘threatening ourselves
with death.’ This obsession for success, and prosperity has forced us to become strangers
to each other and ourselves. We need to take time to introspect and meditate, and spend time with each other so that we are really not threatening ourselves with
imminent ‘death’.
Will Keeping Quiet
Benefit Nature?
According to the poem, keeping
quiet will benefit the Earth and Nature. In stanza 4, the poet writes that when
fishermen practice inactivity, they will ‘not harm whales’. Whales are part of
nature and they will get a respite from being hunted. In stanza 5, the poet
talks about how keeping quiet and practising moments of stillness will help thwart
‘Those who prepare green wars.' Green wars can also be interpreted as a war
against nature, the destruction of green cover with napalm and agent orange a defoliant
that was used in the Vietnam war. Both napalm and agent orange destroyed large
tracts of forest cover so that the enemy could not hide and be exposed.
What are the lessons that the Earth can teach us?
The Earth, and Nature, both have important lessons to teach us. They teach us why it is important for us to take regular breaks from our routines, and how under apparent stillness there is life. The Earth and Nature make use of periods of dormancy and hibernation as moments when organisms enter into a period of rest only to wake up with renewed vigour and energy. Take, for example, trees that shed their leaves during the Autumn season, or for that effect seeds that appear to be lifeless and dead but burst into life at the opportune moment.
Figures of Speech
1. Alliteration
we will
we would
sudden strangeness
his hurt hands
so single
2. Pun
cold sea
arms
Style of Writing
The two couplets at the beginning
of the poem and the end of the poem serve to contain or encapsulate the six
stanzas. Also, note the shift in narration in the first couplet from “ Now we”
to “Now I’ll”. The “Now we” suggests the
poet being part of the exercise and “No I’ll” suggests that the poet wants to
give them some privacy. The poem consists of two couplets two quatrains it is written more as a free-verse. Notice also that each stanza is a run-on sentence, typically called an enjambment.
Reference to
Context Questions
I. Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
1. Who is “we” in the first line?
2. Why will we count to twelve?
3. Identify the figure of speech used in
the first line.
4. Identify the figure of speech in the
second line.
II For once on the face of the
Earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s
stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
1. What does the poet not want his readers to do in the second line?
2. What does the poet want the readers to ‘stop for one second’?
3. What figure of speech has the poet used in the fourth line?
4. What will happen if we follow the poet’s instructions?
III It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
1. What would be an exotic moment? Why
would it be exotic?
2. Identify the figure of speech used in
the third line.
3. Identify the figure of speech in the
last line.
4. What effect would this exercise have on
“all” of us?
IV Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
1. Identify the figure of speech in the
first line.
2. Whom does the man gathering salt
represent?
3. What do ‘whales’ symbolise?
4.
What figure of speech has the poet used in the last line?
VI What I want should not be
confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about:
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and
of threatening ourselves with
death.
1. What should the reader not be ‘confused’
about?
2.
In what way are we so ‘single-minded’?
3.
What does the poet want the world to do in order this ‘sadness’?
4. Why
are we ‘threatening ourselves with death’?
VII Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
1. What metaphors of nature has the poet
invoked in this stanza?
2. What does the ‘Earth’ represent in
this stanza?
3. Explain, ‘when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive’. Give suitable examples.
VIII Now I’ll count up to twelve
And you keep quiet and I will go.
1. Who is I in the above stanza?
2. What is the significance of ‘twelve’?
3. Who is ‘you’ in the stanza?
4. How is the last stanza different from
the first stanza? What does this shift signify?
Some Ponderable
Questions
1. How has lockdown in today’s
times benefitted nature and perhaps even humanity in general (apart from the
fatalities we have been recording)? Do you think nature has benefitted from
human beings staying at home and not venturing out?
2. Pablo Neruda died in 1973,
much before we even came into this world and yet he wrote about the human
predicament in the age of technology. Do you think, “Keeping Quiet” is a
futuristic prediction of life in the 21st Century?
3. In this age of technological
advancement, do you think the lessons taught by ‘the Earth’ from nature have
any relevance for us today? Is keeping quiet and keeping still relevant to us
today?
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