Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1957

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Poetry in Translation

The English translation of Neruda’s poem loses the poem’s original sounds and cadences, as all translations do to some degree. Spanish has many more natural rhymes and flowing rhythms and sounds than English. The difference is apparent when examining the first stanza.

In English, the first stanza goes:

Here,

among the market vegetables,

this torpedo

from the ocean

depths,

a missile

that swam,

now

lying in front of me

dead.

In Spanish, the original poem reads:

En el mercado verde,

bala

del profundo

océano

proyectil

natatorio,

te vi,

muerto.

The main difference in sound is the lack of rhyme in the English version. The only assonance—repetition of nearby vowel sounds—present in the English version is “torpedo/ocean.” The Spanish version, though, heavily relies on rhyme in this first stanza: “mercado/profundo/océano/natatorio/muerto.”

This is one issue with translation. While a translator can translate the literal meaning of a poem, they can’t translate the sounds of the original language. When reading a poem in translation, it is important to try and hear the poem in its original language.

Personification

Neruda personifies the tuna for many reasons, but the main reason is to force the reader to identify with the fish. But not only does Neruda give the tuna human characteristics, but he also gives it human tools. This allows the tuna more agency and power in the context of the poem, making its ultimate demise that much more disturbing. It is also worth noting Neruda focuses on a single tuna, not a group of them. Focusing on one tuna adds to its personification, making it seem almost like an individual and not a nameless, featureless fish amongst a school of nearly identical others.

Personification is a common literary device in odes. For example, in John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats gives the urn life by imagining the paintings on it coming to life and living full lives. Once again, the idea is to make the non-human object feel more like a human in order to connect the reader to it.

In contrast, the way the humans treat the tuna—which ultimately is the most human thing in the poem—is the most inhumane part of the poem. Neruda has, in essence, turned the animal into a human and the humans into animals.

Metaphor

The poem extensively relies on metaphor—especially when describing the tuna. Neruda chooses to use metaphors instead of similes to describe the tuna because metaphors allow for a more direct and prevailing comparison. The tuna, for instance, is not like a harpoon; it is a harpoon. Neruda does everything he can to strengthen the tuna’s presence and metaphor is a powerful device in his toolkit. By stacking metaphor upon metaphor, he pounds the tuna’s strength into the reader’s mind.

Finally, converse to the way the humans in the poem are not given any weapons, Neruda only uses metaphors to describe the tuna. The humans are lifeless and given no metaphorical power. Only the tuna deserves the poet’s metaphors. Neruda gives the humans nothing.