What is the theme in On the Threshold by Eugenio Montale?

The poem is also an appeal for personal and spiritual freedom. The speaker feels that he is imprisoned in a condition of stasis, unable to act in a free manner, unconditioned by the oppressive weight of the past. He longs to be free of this stasis, which he equates with being condemned or damned, in contrast to the salvation he believes is possible—at least for his companion. According to George Talbot, in a note to "On the Threshold" in an Italian edition of Montale's Selected Poems, salvation is "an ambiguous term which . . . would seem to connote a capacity to enjoy a fulness of life, undisturbed by doubt and uncertainty."