Octavio Paz

The Street

The Street - meaning Summary

Pursuing an Absent Self

The poem presents a solitary walker in a dark, interminable street who hears another's footsteps matching his own. He turns repeatedly but finds nobody, and the pursued figure ultimately declares himself as nobody. The brief narrative explores themes of isolation, the uncanny doubling of self, and the search for identity that yields absence rather than encounter. The street becomes a metaphor for an existential journey without resolution.

Read Complete Analyses

A long and silent street. I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall and rise, and I walk blind, my feet stepping on silent stones and dry leaves. Someone behind me also stepping on stones, leaves: If I slow down, he slows; If I run, he runs. I turn: nobody. Everything dark and doorless. Turning and turning among these corners which lead forever to the street where nobody waits for, nobody follows me, where I pursue a man who stumbles and rises and says when he sees me: nobody.

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