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   sagetrieb Teacher
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   Yes.  The apple that he praises in the poem alludes to the apple in the Garden of Eden, which he refers to as Paradise. However, the apple in Paradise was forbidden fruit:  the myths is that Satan tempted Eve to eat it, even though God had told Adam and Eve they could eat anything in the Garden but that. Significantly, that is what the speaker of the poem wants:  the forbidden fruit. He wants it for its promise of sensual knowledge.  Because the poem pays homage to the knowledge that by Genesis we are not supposed to have, the speaker, like Satan, praises what tradition says we should not do, finding in that something wonderful. In so doing, he undermines the Puritanical foundations of the culture of the United States. He in fact calls for a new revolution through the apple: “I want / a city, a republic,/ a Mississippi River / of apples/ and I want to see / gathered / on its banks / the world’s /entire / population / united and reunited / in the simplest act we know: /I want us to bite into an apple.”  The speaker uses various words of statehood here, and specific references to the United States via “Mississippi River” and “united and reunited” to call attention to the political nature of the poem.

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   http://www.enotes.com/salem-lit/pablo-neruda

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   Posted by sagetrieb on Tuesday November 6, 2007 at 4:05 PM