Journeys

A journey is a means of travel that can be physical, imaginative or inner. Journeys can offer new insights, experiences and enlightenment, however journeys involve obstacles and challenges that need to be overcome before these goals can be reached. Often journeys are taken to escape the real world and deal with problems, but it is how the individual deals with the experiences that defines their journey and who they are. The poem “Ode on a Grecian urn” by John Keats and the film “Alice in Wonderland” by Tim Burton both shows the main characters change from their journey and who they become after.

The poem “Ode to a Grecian urn” by John Keats shows a man in awe of an urn fascinated by the painted figures on it, he talks to them in admiration and imagines what life would be like on the urn. “Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, forever panting and forever young.” Shows that the speaker has a fascination for the immortality of the figurines. This seems to be a personal trait of the man, as he seems to be obsessed with the beauty “your leaves nor ever bid the spring adieu” and obsessed with prolonged youth. The unfulfillment of the figurines (how the lovers will never embrace etc.) does show that the speaker cannot just be defined as a hopeless; youth obsessed soul but that he also sees the downsides of the urn, giving the speaker a more conscious definition to his character.

Towards the end of the poem “ode to a Grecian urn” the speaker ends up on an imaginative journey that takes him within the urns images. The speaker encounters the new and unknown as he finds himself in a Greek temple by the water witnessing a religious sacrifice. The fact that the speaker truly believes this is happening defines that he has a strong imagination, and that he can manage watching a sacrifice (which wouldn’t occur in the time the speaker comes from) conveys that he is dealing with this journey with an open mind. However when he comes out of the journey he questions begins