The Fear
The Fear - meaning Summary
Fear Turned Inward
Neruda's poem describes pervasive anxiety and the pressure of others' prescriptions for health, action, and meaning. The speaker rejects external diagnoses and judgments, then admits a universal vulnerability: fear of people, nature, and death. The final turn locates the deepest threat within the self—Pablo Neruda names himself the most treacherous enemy. The poem is a compact confession of inward dread and resistance to outside control.
Read Complete AnalysesThey all ask me to jump to invigorate and to play soccer, to run, to swim and to fly. Very well. They all advise me rest, they all send me to the doctor, looking at me a certain way. What happens? They all advise me to travel, to come and to leave, to stay, to die and not to die. It does not matter. They all see the difficulties of my surprised bowels by awful X-rayed portraits. I do not agree. They all sting my poetry with relentless forks seeking, without doubt, a fly, I Am afraid. I am afraid of everyone, of the cold water, of the death. I am like all the mortals, unavoidable. And for that, in these short days I am not going to pay attention to them, I am going to open myself up and shut myself in with my more perfidious enemy, Pablo Neruda.
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