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Seung Yeon Hong

Laura Smyrl

ENGL-123-5009

February 14th, 2021

Emptiness

After reading the poem “Don’t Go Far Off”, by Pablo Neruda, I deeply assimilated

with the poem, even though I did not go through the exact situation that happens in the poem.

As I read the poem, I could feel every pain, emptiness, and how desperate the character is.

Briefly, the poem illustrates about the character who lost the beloved one and longing for the

beloved one desperately. When we think about the title “Don’t Go Far Off”, we can get the

general idea of the poem. The word far off has two meanings. Firstly, it has a meaning of far

distance, and secondly, it has a meaning of something that has gone wrong. From these two

meanings, we can imply that the poem is a story about someone leaving far away from the

character, and something has gone wrong with the character. The author uses various literary

devices to make the reader focus on the poem and put real emotion into it. Among all literary

devices he uses, imagery and the strong tone in the poem were most outstanding parts in the

poem. Throughout the poem “Don’t Go Far Off, the author makes the readers able to draw

the scene and maximize the emptiness feeling in the poem by imagery, by symbolism, and

deepens the desperation of the character by strong tone.

Neruda successfully uses symbol to make the reader deeply understand about the

characters emptiness. At the beginning paragraph of the poem, the author writes “I will be

waiting for you, as in an empty station where the trains are parked off somewhere else,

asleep” (Neruda, lines 3-4). When thinking about the empty station with trains waiting for the
next day

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to board passengers, it gives a sense of emptiness. Also, the author states “trains are parked

off somewhere else, asleep” (Neruda, line 4), replacing him as a train that is terminated from

service that day. Since there are no passengers to carry on, trains in the station cannot operate.

Passengers are the most significant element why the train exist. The train perfectly

symbolizes the character. The character’s beloved one is the reason why the character has

moved on in life as a train. Since he or she has lost the reason of his or her life, one has lost

motivation of one’s life, there is nothing to do instead of waiting for the beloved one as a

train asleep in an empty station. By thinking the meaning of the title, this symbolism matches

with the title because when the characters beloved one gets faraway from him, he might feel

more emptiness and depression because he has nothing to do instead of waiting for the

beloved one. The author perfectly uses the symbol to make the readers deeply understand the

situation and feeling of the character in the poem.

Neruda also uses other symbol, a form of imagery, to demonstrate how desperate the

character wants the beloved one back. In the last paragraph of the poem, the author writes

“I’ll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me here,

dying?” (Neruda, lines 13-14). The word mazily, or we can think it as a maze, gives a picture

of endless, bleak structure that is almost impossible to escape from it. By reading the whole

poem, we can imply that the characters beloved one has passed away, but the character is still

looking for the beloved one “mazily over the earth” (Neruda, line 14). The maze perfectly

symbolizes the desperation of the character. Even though the character knows that it is

impossible to bring back the beloved one to life, like finding the exit or the answer of the

maze, the character’s love towards to the beloved one is enormous that he is willing for an
impossible wish to happen. This impossible wish, by the word maze, makes the reader to

fully know about what feelings

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the character has and what situation he or she is going through.

Same as the imagery, the strong tone of the poem shows how earnest the character is.

The tone of the poem is very sentimental, and it is shown from “Will you come back? Will

you leave me here, dying” (Neruda, line 14). As the poem gets to the end, the tone gets very

sentimental and extreme. At first the poem starts with a mild tone, such as stating “I will be

waiting for you” (Neruda, line 3). However, at the end, it changes to “Will you leave me here,

dying?” (Neruda, line 14). The readers can detect a dramatic change of the tone, and it makes

the readers deeply assimilate with the character inside the poem, giving a better

understanding about the characters feeling. To me, this sentence sounded like the character

crying to death, longing for, and regretting about actions that the character has done, or have

not done to the beloved one, Also, as the tone changes dramatically, we can imply as the

poem gets to the end, we can discover that something has gone wrong with the character, or

the beloved one, which we had analyzed by just reading the title. The tone plays an important

role in the poem as a role of explaining what the character is currently going through.

After reading the poem “Don’t Go Far Off”, I thought that the story inside the poem

can happen to any of the reader in real life. Some of us might not have the exact situation that

happened in the poem, and some might have the same experience. However, even though

some of the readers do not have the same experience, they might have situations of someone

important walking out of their life. The pain, emptiness, and desperation might be less than

the character, but readers might have the similar feelings. Personally, after reading the line, “I

will be waiting for you, as in an empty station where the trains are parked off somewhere
else, asleep” (Neruda, line 3-4), I recalled my memories when my grandfather passed away.

After he passed away, all the memories, words and actions with him and everything that I

have done

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to him came into myself, but regretful memories were the biggest part among them. I thought

what If I have done this for him, what if I have given this to him, or what if I have said this to

him. I was also longing for him like the character in the poem, even slightly wanted him to

come back, so I can do better than before, give more than before I did. By the literary devices

Neruda uses, readers deeply assimilate to the characters feeling. Using imagery and

symbolism, the author gives us a better understanding about the blank feeling, and the tone of

the poem gives us how desperate the character is. I personally think the poem throws a

question to us about have we ever loved someone this much.

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Works Cited

Neruda, Pablo. "Don't Go Far Off." https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-go-far-off

Essay letter

From my essay, I liked the part where I explained about 3-4 line about the poem. The most
difficult part was explaining the analysis. I have never written an essay about poems, or a reader
response essay, so expressing my ideas in a structured essay was really challenging. Also, since
English is my second language, idea expressing essay seems to be a more challenge compare to
other essays. When I wrote other forms of essays, I did not have hard time expressing my ideas
or writing in a structured paragraph. I think it was difficult for me because I have never done
these kinds of essays before. Most of essays I have done before were essays for test, such as
TOFEL or SAT. SAT essays seems much easier compared to this. The part that I focused on from
my peers’ feedback was reference. I tried to refer from my personal thoughts or experience to the
lines from the poem. The part that I focused on from your feedback was Theoretical approach.
After reading the feedback and my draft, I realized that as I wrote down my body paragraphs, I
lost the point of the essay. To fix it, I analyzed only about the title at the first body paragraph and
tried to relate all the other body paragraphs to the analysis of the first body paragraph.

Essay letter after the revision

I dropped my essay on the net tutoring service to have more sentence variety and word choice.
There was lack of information about sentence variety and word choice, but they gave me
feedback about the organization of the essay and how to write a conclusion. There are two parts
that I revised mainly, connecting the introduction and the first body paragraph, and adding more
to the conclusion. The tutor gave me a feedback to put my first body paragraph in the
introduction. The first body paragraph was about general meaning of the title of the poem, so I
added after where I briefly introduced about the poem. For the conclusion, the tutor said it is
better to restate the thesis in different words, so I restated the thesis in the conclusion. I let other
parts of the conclusion same as the essay before because those were meant to make the readers
think about the poem and put their experiences in the characters shoes. Besides the feedback
from the tutor, I added some sentences to all the body paragraphs to improve the analysis or
make a clear end to it.

Evidence