Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The speaker is a friend of Maru Mori and someone who greatly appreciates handmade socks.
Form and Meter
Free verse, with mid-sentence line breaks (enjambment) and the repetition of phrases to begin lines (anaphora). There are four stanzas. The first three are made up of two sentences each. The last one is one sentence long.
Metaphors and Similes
The speaker compares the socks to rabbits, in a simile, because of their soft quality.
With the “as if” the poem uses another simile to compare the socks to “jewel cases.”
In a metaphor the speaker compares his feet to “two woolen/fish.”
In an extension of the fish metaphor, his feet become sharks.
Continuing the series of metaphors, his feet become “two mammoth blackbirds/two cannons.”
Metaphors in which the socks are compared with heavenly light: “dusk,” “celestial”
Similes:
“I resisted
the strong temptation
to save them
the way schoolboys
bottle
fireflies,
the way scholars
hoard
sacred documents.”
“Like explorers who in the forest
surrender a rare
and tender deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse,
I stuck out my feet
and pulled on
the
handsome
socks,
and then my shoes.”
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration:
“S” sound:
“of socks
knitted with her own
shepherd's hands,
two socks soft
as rabbits.
I slipped."
“schoolboys,” “scholars,” and “sacred.”
“R” sound:
“and daily feed them
birdseed
and rosy melon flesh.
Like explorers
who in the forest
surrender a rare
and tender deer
to the spit
and eat it
with remorse.”
“W” sound:
“when,” “woollen,” and “wintertime,”
Assonance:
"socks" and "soft"
Irony
An ironic subversion of expectation: You would expect something lofty to symbolize the beautiful and the good in a poem. Instead, the punchline, set up and delivered way back in the title, is that we’re talking about socks here—the most mundane objects.
Genre
Ode: a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter. Fable: After the “So” we learn that this poem has a “moral,” meaning that the ode is taking the form of a fable. This also fits with the use of animals in the poem, common to fables.
Setting
Chile: Since both Maru Mori and the poet were from Chile, it is the likely setting of this poem. The ecology of animals in the poem is also Chilean. Maru Mori lived in the 20th century. This poem was written in the 1950s. The poem takes place both in an intimate domestic environment and in the speaker’s imagination.
Tone
Tongue-in-cheek, Grateful
Protagonist and Antagonist
Major Conflict
Between keeping the socks unworn and wearing them.
Climax
When he finally puts on his socks:
“I stretched out
my feet
and pulled on
the magnificent
socks
and then my shoes.”
Foreshadowing
Understatement
“beauty is twice
beauty
and what is good is doubly
good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool
in winter.”
The lofty poetic concepts of the beautiful and the good are tied to humble socks in understatement.
Allusions
Maru Mori:
Full name: Maruja Vargas de Mori
A friend of Neruda’s.
Her husband was the Chilean painter Camilo Mori.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Synecdoche
The socks honor the speaker's feet and so honor the speaker.
"thus honored
were
my feet
by
these
celestial
socks."
How he feels about his feet stands for how he feels about himself:
“They were
so handsome
for the first time
my feet seemed to me
unacceptable
like two decrepit
firemen, firemen
unworthy
of that woven
fire,”
Personification
“They were
so beautiful
that for the first time
my feet seemed
unacceptable to me,
two tired old
fire fighters”
Comparing his feet to fire fighters is an example of personification.
Hyperbole
“thus honored
were
my feet
by
these
celestial
socks.”
Comparing socks to the heavens is an example of hyperbole.
