In Latin American tales, metaphors and symbols are extremely powerful means of conveying hidden meaning within the stories. Three examples of such literary devices are within the book 100 Years of Solitude, various poems by Pablo Neruda, and the movie Il Postino. Each of these examples contain many images that stand for something greater than themselves.
In “100 Years of Solitude” metaphors are used to show how different the developed world is compared to Macondo. It shows the difference by giving ordinary objets and occurrences in both societies a more mysterious and fantastical connotation. The objects and events symbolize the divide between two very different worlds inhabited by people that under similar circumstances could just be one and the same but instead seem like aliens in the eyes of outsiders. Examples of this arise very early in the story to make that divide very obvious and finalized without question. The way in which the objects are brought into the story is through the gypsy characters that bring objects from foreign lands to Macondo. They are simple things like ice, magnifying glasses, and magnets but to the people of this land they seem like magical instruments. Such regular objects are introduced in order to show how little these two worlds understand about one another. This goes the other way too because to a reader, the events that occur in the book seem extremely strange and convoluted but are actually based in fact. One example is the insomnia plague that sweeps through Macondo. It is a contagious disease that causes everyone to be unable to sleep and leads to the entire city to begin forgetting the names and purposes of everyday items and eventually their own lives. It symbolizes not only how fantastical this other land can seem, but also is there to represent the impermanence of history. Though people try their best to record and document everything, the reality is that we are only humans and our ability to remember or even believe events is often based in what we are told. But often people don’t remember what to tell or they chose to lie.
Pablo Neruda writes many poems and all are immersed in metaphors intended to portray a thought more eloquently. His poem “I Like For You To Be Still”employs metaphor when Neruda says “You are like the night with its stillness and constellations your silence is that of a star as remote and candid .” In this poem he is trying to convey the message that he would rather experience his lover’s presence through all means except talking and listening. Sometimes words ruin what otherwise could be a precious moment. What better way to convey this than through such a metaphor as the one he uses? Neruda chooses what is probably the most silent and distant thing out there. The lonely stars millions of miles away, floating alone in the vacuum of space. It is far away but also beautiful and something worth just observing to understand that all problems are so insignificant beneath the vastness of everything else. This is the feeling he has with that woman and without being wordy- and therefore using exactly what he wants to avoid- he chooses his comparisons carefully. Another example is in the poem “Ode To The Dictionary” when in describing the dictionary- a mere book, a tool for people to research information- he dresses it “Dictionary, you’re not a tomb, sepulcher, casket, burial mound, mausoleum, but a preserver.” This dwells so deeply into the very concept of the dictionary itself. It makes the reader think about something they may not even have considered, that the book traps words in it, but immediately shows the wrongness in that assumption by showing that the dictionary protects wisdom. In this way it is the sort of thing that the people in “100 Years of Solitude” lacked because in the blink of an eye many things were erased from history.
The movie “Il Postino” outwardly disguises itself as a simple love story and a tale of the bonds of friendship but evolves into something much more meaningful. The entire movie that at first glance seems very on the surface actually is filled with the deeper meaning of things. The main character, Mario, “is really a more complex individual. He occasionally makes some startlingly insightful observations, such as ‘the whole world is a metaphor for something.'” (James Berardinelli) The movie’s entire plot shows how poetry can affect lives, and alongside the symbols within it, it also goes to define metaphors consistently throughout so that one can understand their impact.When Mario discovers what Metaphors can do, he begins to see the world differently, and as Pablo Neruda makes poetic comparisons throughout the film, the viewer begins to see things differently as well. “We see that Mario, too, might have developed the soul of a poet, had he not been born in such a backwater.” (Roger Ebert) The film has an enchanting quality to it that is able to bring about a higher appreciation of poetry and the strength in Symbol and Metaphor.
In all of these instances the literary devices play a huge role in defining their stories and bringing more depth into them. Symbols and Metaphors are everywhere throughout our existence. That’s why there are writers out there to comprehend such inner workings of the universe and put them on paper or in film so that it can be apparent to others that may experience such things without acknowledging them.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-postman-il-postino-1995
http://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/postman-the-il-postino
