Keeping Quiet

Theme
The poet, Pablo Neruda, urges mankind to cease all activity for a little while.
During these few moments of silence and inactivity, all human beings would be
one, united, and in harmony with each other and nature. This togetherness and
oneness is most desirable for the survival of the earth and of human beings. Neruda
believes that the soul housed within the human body is capable of performing this
feat if given a chance to shine out through introspection, for which absolute silence
and stillness is essential.
Theme (2)
keeping Quiet is a simple poem about the need for a little bit of soul-searching
which may help us to make peace with ourselves and others. It tells us how a
moment of silent introspection will make us realize the utter of our aggressive
endeavours.
Summary
In the poem ‘Keeping Quiet’, Pablo Neruda talks about the need for
introspection and to create a feeling of mutual understanding, love and
respect in the human world. He speaks about life where human beings are
engrossed in their selfish motives and are living a life full of strife and
destruction.
The poet asks everyone in the world to keep still for twelve seconds to
create a togetherness. He wants all the people on the earth, not to talk in
any language but to maintain a silence to communicate with each other’s
heart. He believes that this sudden moment of silence will be an exotic
moment. There will be no noise and no movement. The fishermen in the
sea will stop killing the whales and the men who gather salt will stop their
work and look at their hurt hands. This kind of break will enable both nature
and man to embalm their rounds. Due to this break, human beings will start
looking and caring for themselves rather than their work. Moreover, those
who are fighting with each other, will stop and walk about their fellow
brethren.
Pablo Neruda clarifies that he does not want to advocate total inactivity or
death. He is concerned that we all are running blindly in a rat race and, in
this process, we have completely missed our true goal to keep a balance
between man and nature. This is a dangerous situation and can bring
catastrophic results. So our survival in this world depends upon our ability
to understand and rectify this. This can be done only when we introspect
and develop a feeling of understanding with each other.
Form
Keeping Quiet is written in blank verse and has no rhyme scheme.
 Message
`Keeping Quiet’ leaves a message of universal brotherhood and peace. It
urges people to stop all sorts of aggression, including that towards the
environment. If we think of ourselves as the hands of the clock on the face
of this earth, moving in our routine ways, won’t it be a good thing to stop at
twelve and do some introspection?
Poetic Devices
`Count to twelve’ — symbolizes a measure of time. The clock has twelve
markings on it, the year has twelve months and the day has twelve hours.
`Fishermen in the cold sea…hurt hands’-symbolic image showing how man
is ruthlessly destroying nature for his selfish need. The ‘hurt hands’ of the
salt gatherer symbolises how he is harming himself by his mindless
activities.
Fisherman and whale stand for the oppressor and oppressed respectively.
‘Cold sea’ — transferred epithet.
Put on clean clothes’- Alliteration
Introspection will make us comprehend the destructive nature of wars. Man
would cleanse his heart purging it of hatred.
`Brothers’ — a symbol of mankind
`In the shade’ — metaphor — just as shade protects us from the harsh sun,
we will protect and shelter each other as brothers, thus live in peace and
harmony.
`Clean clothes’ symbolize peace and change in one’s perspective.
`Earth can teach us as when everything’ — Personification. Earth is personified as
a teacher. When the earth appears to be dead, it is actually dormant and carefully
preserving the seeds of life, human beings too need to keep still and quiet to re-
awaken the life forces to be productive.
The poet urges people to get into a mode of total inactivity for some seconds.
There should only be silence, no movement and a mood of introspection. He
condemns the mundane activities. He says that we should not indulge in any
mindless activity or speak in any language, nor does he want any gestures of arms
that can distract or disturb. He says that we should commit ourselves to complete
silence and inactivity
This moment of complete inactivity would be an extraordinary, memorable or
cherished moment. There would be no rush of activity, no noise and no
disturbance. Man would not have to cope with the fast pace of life. This would be a
profound moment of bonding and togetherness. There would be a complete
relaxation of mind, body and soul.
The poet talks about a metaphorical concept when he says that fishermen would
not harm marine life. ‘Cold sea’ denotes the coldness of fishermen who do not
bother about protection of sea life and in moments of inactivity, they would not be
able to disturb the sea animals. The salt gatherers would also stop to look at their
calloused hands that hurt due to this activity. They too would pause to think about
their mindless activities and their effects.
 The poet feels that the whole speculation of wars and their destructive qualities
would be negated during those moments of silence. ‘Green wars’ refers to
environmental degradation caused by human activities, ‘wars’ with gases and fires
refers to wars fought with nuclear and bioweapons. A man may get the satisfaction
of being victorious but ironically, wars leave behind no survivors.
Those human beings who wage wars would be cleansed of all the murk and dirt
from their minds. They would then walk about with other individuals and exhibit
amity, brotherhood and harmony. They would do nothing to harm mankind or
nature.
The poet does not wish to advocate total inactivity or silence, which may be
misunderstood, and confused with death. Life continues to remain what we make
of it. If we were not so concerned about keeping our lives active, i.e., doing things
mindlessly and waging wars. We perhaps would not lose sight of our goals. Our
desire to achieve goals makes us single-minded and desperate. It is then that we
lose all perspective. The poet feels that silence for a while might alleviate sadness
from our lives. Quiet productivity in place of all activities is desirable. The end of
all activities does not mean death but just a break from the monotony of a stressful
life.
The poet, in the last lines, feels that we can learn a lesson from earth. It can teach
us how silence is productive. The earth appears calm and quiet but is actually
nurturing life. Things may die but are reborn and the cycle goes on because the
earth brings forth new life. The poet appeals to all human beings to make an effort
to keep inactive/ quiet. He has initiated the state of inactivity and now it is the
human beings who can carry on with this idea while he makes a quiet exit.
Figures of Speech
1.Alliteration
– sudden strangeness (stanza 3)
– clean clothes (stanza 5)
(Referring to clean minds and bodies)
2. Transferred Epithet
– Cold sea (stanza 4)
CHAPTER NUTSHELL
Theme
1. The urgent need for mankind to introspect, buy time to start afresh.
2. To put an end to all destructive activities, be at peace, in universal
brotherhood.
3. The need to live in peaceful co-existence with nature, to stop harming
animals and avoid annihilation of the human race.
Content
1. The poet counts up to 12, as a countdown to stop all activity (12 indicating
the twelve markings on the clock/12 months signifying the passage of time)
people all over the world stop working, bound in an `exotic’ moment as it
has never happened before.
2. Fishermen don’t kill whales and the man stops extracting salt hurting his
hands in the process. Men indulging in wars, chemical or otherwise,
harming the environment, stop their destructive activities, don’t clean
clothes and are at peace with each other, `in the shade’ as against the fiery
wars where there would be no survivors.
3. The poet wants productive inactivity, not inactivity per se which would be a
death-like a state. He thinks men are single-minded in the following a
routine, without introspecting and gauging to see where they are going with
their lives, there is a vacuum in their lives, a deep sadness as they have no
time to ponder over what they want from life.
4. The Earth, he thinks can teach us the need to take a break (as it seems to
hibernate in winter, seems dead but comes back to life in full force in
spring) to resurrect our life and start afresh. After conveying his message,
the poet feels he can pass on the mantle of responsibility to mankind who
can follow his path shown by him.
Imagery
1. Use of repetition with a difference in the first and last lines of the poem.
2. ‘put on clean clothes’ metaphorical—cleanse one’s soul, remove traces of
bloodshed.
3. Image of the earth-nurturer and life-giver.