The Poet Character Analysis

A writer and guest of Clara’s at the big house on the corner. Like Clara’s other guests, the Poet is an enthusiast of spiritualism and the supernatural, and he frequently reads his sonnets to entertain Clara and the other guests. The Poet supports and advocates socialist ideology, and lines of his poetry are painted on city walls by members of the youth brigade after the military coup d’état seizes power from the President. As the Poet lays dying, the police ransack his house looking for communists and subversive literature. He dies four days later of a heart attack, and a wake is held for those with enough courage to attend. Esteban and Alba pay their respects at the Poet’s funeral, which is a “symbolic burial of freedom.” While it isn’t explicitly stated, Allende’s Poet is presumably based on the real-life Chilean poet and politician, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), who is often referred to as the national poet of Chile. While it was initially assumed that Neruda died of a heart attack, the Chilean government acknowledged that he was likely killed in an incident during the 1973 Chilean coup d’état. The Poet, like Sebastián Gómez, illustrates the persecution of intellectuals and the oppression of free thought and ideas under the dictatorship imposed in the novel.