“..I go from loving to not loving you…”: A Deconstruction of Emotional States in Pablo Neruda’s “I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You” Anonymous College

In Pablo Neruda’s “I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You”, the persona does not explicitly state whether he is in love or not. Pablo Neruda advances subjects that are mutually exclusive such as Love/Not to love; wanting/not wanting; love/hate. The persona is undecided based on the unclassified language that he or she uses to describe the disjointed feelings that alternate between love and hate. “I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You”, is archetypal of equivocation; the persona is not certain whether he/she is not in love: he/she is experiencing mutually exclusive emotional states that alternate unpredictably.

Neruda's chosen persona is impulsive, one cannot tell whether he/she is in love or not. For example, the persona says, “I do not love you except because I love you;/ I go from loving to not loving you, (Lines 1-2). Here, the persona’s love feelings are unstable; For the intended audience it would be difficult to discern when the persona is feeling love and when he/she is not feeling the love. This results in an imagery of a pendulum that is oscillating continuously. This scenario can give rise to moods that are on the extreme sides of the pendulum. Reading these lines to someone would be discouraging because...