Based on the passage from “Roberto Ignacio Torres Bakes” and the passage from “The Dreamer,” write an essay that explains how Papi and Neftalí change. this the passage Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner who died in 1973. In this excerpt from a novel based on the true events of his life, we see the poet transform himself from a lonely boy named Neftalí.
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(2) Neftalí sat in his room with the light of a flickering candle casting shadows on his walls and finished a new poem for Claridad. Now, he had a dilemma. This poem was to appear next week, not only in the university magazine but simultaneously in a Santiago newspaper. Father knew many people in Santiago, and Neftalí could not take the chance that Father would discover he was disobeying him. Besides that, he could not stop thinking about what Father had said—that he was an embarrassment to the family.
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(3) Neftalí sighed and put down his pen. He picked up the local Temuco newspaper and read an article about the works of a Czech writer. To Neftalí, the writer’s name seemed unusual and exotic. If only he had such a name. He wrote the last name on a small piece of paper. Then he read it out loud, again and again.
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(4) He pulled a book of Italian poetry from his shelf and began to thumb through it, stopping at a page to read about a character named Paolo.
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(5) “Paolo,” he said, but it didn’t sound quite right. He translated the name into Spanish and nodded, writing it on the paper next to the other name.
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(6) The name was not only a perfect solution, it was a perfect fit. He picked up his pen again. At the end of his poem, instead of signing Neftalí Reyes, he wrote Pablo Neruda. He would use this name to save Father the humiliation of having a son who was a poet. Maybe he would use the name only until he became lost enough to find himself.
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(7) Maybe he would even keep the name. It might take him places. After all, it had a rhythm like a locomotive chugging uphill.
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(8) The following morning, he slowly packed his belongings into a metal trunk: clothes, books, pens, and, of course, something for which he would never be too old—his sheep. He carefully sorted his collections into storage boxes, taking one box with him and taking the other to Laurita’s room for safekeeping.
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(9) He stood in the doorway and handed her the box. “Do not let it go up in flames.”
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(10) She smiled. “I will guard it with my life.”
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(11) That night and throughout the next day, he rode third class in a car full of peasants. It smelled of damp wool from rain-soaked ponchos and wet feathers from unhappy chickens that had been tucked into baskets. But none of that bothered him because he was headed to a place of culture, a place with more like-minded people, where being a student and a poet would not be discouraged.
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(12) When the train stopped, he gathered his trunk, put on a black, wide brimmed hat, and stepped onto the streets of Santiago, to make his way in the world.
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(13) There, in the obscurity of the big city, his writing was as persistent as the weather. Poetry had laid down its path, and he had no choice but to follow. He wrote no matter what his circumstances: when he lived in rooms that were no larger than a cell; when he had barely enough money to eat; when he had no friends and pulled deep within himself; when his heart was broken or when he broke another’s; when he did not agree with the politics at the university or the politics of his country.
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(14) He wrote.
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From THE DREAMER by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Copyright © 2010 by Pam Muñoz Ryan. Used by permission of Scholastic Inc.
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Based on the passage from “Roberto Ignacio Torres Bakes” and the passage from “The Dreamer,” write an essay that explains how Papi and Neftalí change.
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