User:Perl/Ellen Foster/poem

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The Street 
by Octavio Paz 

A long and silent street. 

I walk in blackness and I stumble and fall 

and rise, and I walk blind, my feet 

stepping on silent stones and dry leaves. 

Someone behind me also stepping on stones, leaves: 

if I slow down, he slows: 

if I run, he runs. I turn: nobody. 

Everything dark and doorless. 

Turning and turning among these corners 

which lead forever to the street 

where I pursue a man who stumbles 

and rises and says when he sees be: nobody

Octavio Paz's poem The Street is thematically similar to the ideas present in Ellen Foster. In this poem, the narrator describes a long and silent street that he is traversing at night. He adds that he stumbles and falls. In these two lines, the theme of being lost and lonely is very prevalent. This is similar to the feeling that Ellen has after her mother dies. In the next line, the narrator says that he gets back up. The idea that this presents can be equated to the theme of perseverance in Ellen Foster. Soon, the reader becomes aware that the narrator is running away from someone. Ellen spent a great deal of time hiding and running away from her father and his cronies.

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