Journeys Essay
Journey Essay
The study of the poems Journey to the Interior by Margret Atwood and A Summer Rain by John Foulcher; the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and the picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak has developed the concept that “Every journey, if it is truly a journey, will change the traveller, often quite profoundly by changing their perspective on themselves or their surrounding world. Journey to the Interior depicts Atwood’s metaphysical journey to find her self. She begins by comparing her metaphysical journey, to a physical journey into the Canadian landscape. Atwood uses the simile “The hills…welded together move to let me through” This informs us that she believes people have to experience the depths of your mind before they can truly experience reality. The comparison between the Canadian landscape and her mind is continued when she describes the hills “become endless as prairies” With this simile she is describing her mind as never ending and bare, it is a place in which you could easily get lost in.
Atwood continues by using this Barren imagery, “trees grow spindly … this is a poor country” the scene that is created is then compared to her mind and implies how un-chartable it is. Nearing the end of stanza one she uses another natural metaphor and assonance “I move surrounded by a tangle of branches” This description creates the idea that she is finding obstacles in her journey making it more difficult, the repetition of the (a) sound in ‘tangle of branches’ links the ideas and emphasises her struggle. The ironic metaphor “a net of air” continues the idea of her struggle but, as air is a gas and you can’t physically be trapped beneath it, it reminds the reader that this is a metaphysical journey happening within her mind.
As the poem develops through stanza two, three and four Atwood begins to point out differences between the Canadian landscape and her mind, but particularly in stanza two Atwood reveals
The study of the poems Journey to the Interior by Margret Atwood and A Summer Rain by John Foulcher; the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and the picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak has developed the concept that “Every journey, if it is truly a journey, will change the traveller, often quite profoundly by changing their perspective on themselves or their surrounding world. Journey to the Interior depicts Atwood’s metaphysical journey to find her self. She begins by comparing her metaphysical journey, to a physical journey into the Canadian landscape. Atwood uses the simile “The hills…welded together move to let me through” This informs us that she believes people have to experience the depths of your mind before they can truly experience reality. The comparison between the Canadian landscape and her mind is continued when she describes the hills “become endless as prairies” With this simile she is describing her mind as never ending and bare, it is a place in which you could easily get lost in.
Atwood continues by using this Barren imagery, “trees grow spindly … this is a poor country” the scene that is created is then compared to her mind and implies how un-chartable it is. Nearing the end of stanza one she uses another natural metaphor and assonance “I move surrounded by a tangle of branches” This description creates the idea that she is finding obstacles in her journey making it more difficult, the repetition of the (a) sound in ‘tangle of branches’ links the ideas and emphasises her struggle. The ironic metaphor “a net of air” continues the idea of her struggle but, as air is a gas and you can’t physically be trapped beneath it, it reminds the reader that this is a metaphysical journey happening within her mind.
As the poem develops through stanza two, three and four Atwood begins to point out differences between the Canadian landscape and her mind, but particularly in stanza two Atwood reveals