Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Pablo Neruda’s “Walking Around” and Il Postino: The Postman directed by Michael Radford, which was described as “one of those rare and passionate movies that make you want to rush out to a bookstore and lose yourself in endless shelves of printed pages” by Scott G. Mignola, all utilise literary devices such as symbolism, and metaphors. These literary devices leave the works open for interpretation and gives the work a sense of mystery.
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the literary devices are used in incidents such as the insomnia plague and Amaranta’s covered burned hand. It is safe to say that the insomnia plague was a metaphor for the destruction and the slow decay of not only the Buendía family but also Macondo. The forgetfulness that came along with the plague also foreshadows Macondo’s imminent end, just like it’s citizens were forgetting the things within it, so would the world forget about its existence. Amaranta’s self-inflicted burn is a symbol is guilt, grief and loneliness. The black bandage she used to cover up the burn also represents her attempt to cover up her loneliness, the same loneliness she sometimes long to share with the world. The novel’s title is also a mini foreshadow. It is clear from the title alone that the characters of the novel are going to come to a tragic end.
In The Postman, metaphors are used to depict how much love one has for another. When Mario Ruoppolo (played by the late Massimo Troisi) discovers that he has fallen in love with Beatrice Russo, he finds himself using metaphors from Pablo Neruda’s poetry to describe the passion he has burning inside him for Beatrice. This leads to a development of an interest in poetry because to him, it was the closest thing to an explanation he could give about his love. Metaphors in this film are defined as symbols of love and passion. When Mario questioned Neruda, who according to Andy Webb plays the role of “the almost quiet philosopher”, about the metaphors in his poetry, he did so to gain an understanding. To him, prior to Neruda’s explanation, metaphors were strange and unusual forms of descriptions for people, places and things. Although that was the case, by explaining and defining metaphors, especially ones found in poetry, you take away the meaning and the mystery that the metaphor holds. Art (Literature) is open to interpretation and literary devices serve as means to help the readers form their own conclusions based on what they believe the artist is trying to send across. #
Pablo Neruda’s poem “Walking Around” uses a lot of metaphors and it also has a very strong imagery. A perfect example can be found in the first stanza, line 3 “/dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt”, this line has very strong imagery. When we think of dried up, we might picture something dead, and when we think of waterproof, there is an image of something strong and able to withstand the weather, the image the phrase “swan made of felt” brings up nothing that resembles the previous two descriptive words. The line is full of contradictions. A felt swan, although is somewhat dried up, it is not waterproof, it is water resistant to an extent though. The dried up, waterproof felt swan here can be interpreted as a symbol of not necessarily death but rather a state similar to death, perhaps loneliness, because like death, it is a solitary feeling. As the poem goes along, Neruda states “the only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool” (2nd stanza, line 2). The phrase “still like stones or wool” gives off an impression that Neruda wishes to be alive yet dead. He himself feels very contradicted and this is illustrated by the metaphors he uses in his poem. The repetition of the line “It so happens that I am sick of being a man” adds to the interpretation that he no longer wishes to live but nor does he want to die. His wants are simple paradoxical.
Overall, these three works employ literary devices in such innovative ways that one can’t help but fall in love with them. The literary devices give the works multidimensional meanings and makes it easy for the consumers to make their own interpretation of what they think the artistic vision was. That is perhaps the reason why dissecting metaphors takes away so much from its original purpose.
Sources:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/il-postino-the-postman
http://www.themoviescene.co.uk/reviews/il-postino/il-postino.html
