Sunday, March 16, 2008

ode to the tomato

I find this poem to be very insightful. It seems that Neruda is carefully addressing the issue of colonialism in this piece. He introduces the tomato or European colonist as being everywhere, "invading" and "taking over" certain aspects of Chilean society. Neruda also mentions that colonialism will permeate into society when he describes the make-up of all the salad fixings (effects of colonization) present. Here, Neruda notes all the different flavors and ingredients colonialism brought to Chile and discusses their effects. It becomes clear that the motives for colonization were materialistic in his last description of this process as bringing an "all-embracing freshness" to the new land.

No comments: