Traveling Inward – Journey as Metaphor
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Metaphor is most frequently employed as a literary device in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one article is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison. Journey serves as an effective metaphor because it can accurately portray many concepts from all walks of life without becoming vague. This feat is accomplished by utilizing the inherent characteristics of the word “journey” itself, as a journey can be representative of a process, physical travel, or any undertaking involving a goal. In Ariel Dorfmans Heading South, Looking North, Michael Radfords Il Postino, and Pablo Nerudas “Walking Around”, the metaphor of journey manifests both as a process that the protagonists experience, and as an objective that they strive to reach. All three works under discussion have the process taking the form of physical travel, while the goal becomes discovering ones true identity. These two interpretations of journey as a metaphor are inherently intertwined, and through careful analysis, we will see how these associations are represented throughout these works.
Ariel Dorfmans Heading South, Looking North perhaps best illustrates the concept of a journey being both a process and a goal. Dorfmans travels are a focal point of the autobiography, but the travel of Dorfmans parents becomes important in developing the different facets of Dorfmans identity search. The ties between Dorfmans soul-searching and his travel begin, strangely, before his own birth. The story begins at the opening of the twentieth century, when Dormans parents had to flee Europe; his father leaving Odessa and his mother leaving Russia. They each end up in Argentina, where they met in the language common to both bilinguals – Spanish. In essence, the crafting of Dorfmans identity begins there, as he was “conceived in Spanish, literally imagined into being by that language” (Heading South, 14). This allows us to observe how the travels of Dorfmans parents are directly causal to two central pieces of Dorfmans identity: his name, Vladimiro, and his language, Spanish (for the time being). The name “Vladimiro” is an important part of Dorfmans identity because it is born from his fathers learned values and experiences. In essence, Dorfman inherits the product of his fathers own inner journey that included a fascination with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. This is only the beginning of Dorfmans metaphorical and physical journeys, as throughout the course of the book, Dorman encounters new ideals which shift his goals considerably; most often, it is travel which causes this reorientation.
The physical journeys that Dorfman embarks on are directly linked with his inner search for his own identity. The passage that best serves to illustrate the connection between the physical and inner journeys that Dorfman takes reads:
I had decided not to go back North. It was time to take all the simultaneous roads into Latin America I could find or perhaps it was Latin America, during that frantic decade, taking the roads into me, invading me, penetrating me, saturating my senses, filling me with people, with landscapes, with foods, with colors, with projects, a jumble of interrogations. I set out to explore the space and the people around me with a fury enhanced by the awareness of all the energy I had wasted purging my Spanish and turning my back on my Latino self. (Heading South, 162)
Dorfman appears to be in constant transition, whether it is through his many trips between The United States and Chile, or between English-style boarding schools and college universities. In this passage, Dorfman expresses feelings indicating that he is anxious to take root in a country with which he fully identifies. Each trip that he physically takes corresponds to some internal transition as well. In the case described by the preceding passage, it is Dorfmans return to Latin America that causes him to look inward and question his own identity. The section of the passage that reads “It was time to take all the simultaneous roads into Latin America I could find or perhaps it was Latin America, during that frantic decade, taking the roads into me…” shows how both physical and self-exploring journeys occur are interrelated, although we know that in Dorfmans case, it is most often the physical journey which spurs the start of his internal struggles. The way Dorfman describes Latin America as “invading” and “penetrating” him with its roads, serves to further demonstrate how the environment around him affects his identity search. This fact is in sharp contrast to the type of physical journey portrayed in Michael Radfords Il Postino, as Marios identity search does not take him further than the boundaries of his hometown.
Il Postino is another story in which the protagonist is searching for his own identity. Marios journey is primarily of the internal variety, as his physical journey only takes him as far as Pablo Nerudas residence within the boarders of his own town. Marios trips back and forth to Nerudas house illustrate his metaphorical journeys in search of his own identity. Marios travels become important more for the reasons that he makes them, rather than for their geographical significance. Since Mario is on a mission to discover himself, he seeks Nerudas input on most of the new things that occur in his life, and is also very impressionable while in Nerudas presence. Mario takes Nerudas advice as infallible, and seems to try to build his new character around attributes that he feels Neruda possesses and respects; for instance, expressiveness and political idealism. Marios development can be most clearly observed through the changes in his social interaction. In the initial scenes of the film, Mario can hardly form coherent sentences. However, after his relationship with Neruda