Two Hundred Years of Solitude

If you sit and think about it, it won’t take long for you to realize that metaphors are all around us. We are exposed to metaphors whether we like it or not on a daily basis, which can be done from the advertising of big companies (Tropicana’s “your daily ray of sunshine”) to the idioms/sayings we use in personal conversations (“you’re the apple of my eye”). Likewise, though their plots and scenarios are independent from each other, the works 100 Years of Solitude, Il Postino, and Walking Around are all centered and connected through this literary device. In  100 Years of Solitude, Márquez expresses his characters’ inner angst and loneliness through their objects and recurring habits. It is seen that most of the people in the Buendia family have endless voids of loneliness to fill in their hearts, which each member supplies with their own respective diversions. For example, Amaranta’s black bandage once depicted her remorse for the “victims” of her terrible cycle, which consisted of being jealous of Rebeca and rejecting her potential lovers. However later on, Márquez subtly shows that the black bandage on Amaranta’s hand transformed into a symbol for her pledge to virginity and obstinacy. Amaranta’s empty heart may have originated from her guilt of ruining other people’s lives or even from her fear of rejection. Nevertheless, Amaranta attempts to fill up this void by isolating herself from the possibility of serious relationships or marriage and obsessing over beating Rebeca in anything she can think of. Thus, Márquez ultimately packages the deeper, underlying problems of Amaranta inside the metaphor of her constantly worn black bandage. Furthermore, with the book’s central theme revolving around solitude, Márquez displays this element most notably through the several scenes of incest within the Buendia family. The Buendias’ incest and their fear of pig-tailed children really represent how ideas and logic can become deformed and corrupted when one only communicates and exposed to oneself in solitude. On a similar note, Michael Radford’s Il Postino captures the same principle of self-deterioration through isolation, which is seen through character Mario Ruoppolo’s sudden dynamic shift. In the opening, Mario lived in a world where he barely had enough material to have a conversation with his dad. However, similar to the gypsies’ effect on Macondo, Neruda’s appearance opened up Mario’s secluded and dull reality; he ultimately gave Mario a reason to truly live life. A critic from the Washington Post agree stating, when Neruda breaks down a metaphor with the phrase ‘the sky is weeping’, “Mario’s eyes [were] opened to untold possibilities” (Howe 30-31). For Mario, metaphors are of high value since he communicates through them. Through his metaphors, Mario carries the emotions in which he couldn’t before: his sadness, happiness, love, and even his pride. For example, for the first time in his life, Mario charmingly creates his own metaphor from the depth of his lovesick heart: “your smile spreads like a butterfly”. Film reviewer, Roger Ebert, also detects Mario’s clear transition in character through metaphors by noting how he can “see that Mario, too, might have developed the soul of a poet” (Ebert 30-31). This film portrays metaphors to be expressions of imagination in creative truths. Author of the novel series Alvin Journeyman concurs, mentioning metaphors to “have a way of holding the most truth in the least amount of space”. In total, these metaphors act as a medium for Mario’s emotions to be conveyed, or more arguably, they are the cause/catalyst which exposed him to more complex feelings. More importantly, the growth from the hardened yet miserable son of a fisherman to the comical, young poet allowed Mario to obtain his own individuality.

As one of the most vital tools to wordsmiths, metaphors are seen to be utilized in various ways. For the sake of Márquez’s theme of isolation, metaphors were wielded to cover a deeper, more profound meaning. In Radford’s Il Postino and Neruda’s Walking Around metaphors served as a platform for people to project their inner desires, fears, and emotions. Thus, no matter how simple or widespread they are in our society today, metaphors still hold their charm of showcasing artistic expression and concealing elaborate intentions.

Works Cited

Ebert, Roger. “The Postman (Il Postino) Movie Review.” All Content. N.p., 23 June 1995. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Howe, Desson. Washington Post. The Washington Post, 23 June 1995. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Neruda, Pablo. “Walking Around.” Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Metaphors and symbols seem to be come to us naturally and tend to fall seamlessly across almost every literary piece known to man. When people come across metaphors and symbols it helps them express deep thought and conceptualize. There are countless instances in which a person might come across a metaphor or symbol. In the movie The Postman, Mario (the main character) finds himself having intellectual conversations with the famous poet, Pablo Neruda. Mario becomes interested in poems due to the female attention that comes with it. Although he is far from being a poet himself, he is able to find metaphors and symbols towards the end of the movie. For example, when Pablo asks what fishing nets in Italy are like, Mario says they are “sad”. This can be interpreted a number of different ways but the main idea is that Mario was able to take what he had experienced with the nets and gave it a bigger meaning. At the end of the movie, Mario has found

I know this blog post is supposed to mainly be about 100 Years of Solitude, however The Postman and the poems of Pablo Neruda have so strongly peaked my interest that I must write about them primarily. Plus, they kind of go together, so it’s a bit easier. Personally, I am a big fan of international movies, movies about literature, movies that make you think, psychological movies, and romances (of course) so this movie was pretty much right up my alley hitting about three of those topics. I think one review from Common Sense Media captures the essence of the movie perfectly when it says, “IL POSTINO (The Postman) is 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.” I was so immersed in the words of Neruda, and not only the words but also the feelings behind them. When Neruda said in the movie, “I can’t explain using words other than the one’s I’ve written,” I could completely understand where he was coming from. Poetry isn’t about what the words mean, it’s about what they make you feel and the movie does a fantastic job of displaying this. Another review written by Peter Stack says, “Like love itself, some movies seem to wear hearts on their sleeves.” This is another beloved metaphor that Neruda talks about and it’s very a very accurate depiction of the movie as well. Like poetry, you can just feel the movie (okay I know I’m getting a bit cheesy and overzealous but this has me very excited). The language of the movie wasn’t particularly high or complex or intricate, it was simple but somehow had the power to make the audience feel so much more. This is one of the things I love about poetry precisely.

Okay enough blabbering about how much I liked the movie, but what this poetry and these metaphors stood for. For me, I felt like the metaphors and poems represented the emotions of the characters in the film. The metaphor of “Your smile spreads like a butterfly,” was almost like a little window into Mario’s heart and his feelings for Beatrice. I believe there’s a reason that she fell for him once he started saying those things to her, and that reason is she looked through that window and saw his love/passion/affection and couldn’t help but reciprocate. While this isn’t the case all the time, I’m glad it worked out for Mario and Beatrice.

Now on to some of Pablo Neruda’s actual work. Out of the poems we were given to read, my personal favorite was Barcarole. I’m a sucker for sad and/or creepy poems (one of my favorite poets being Poe), so this sad one about love really got my attention. It actually reminded me a bit of Annabelle Lee, a poem by Poe that if you haven’t read you should go read right now because it’s another one of my favorites. I think Neruda is using the sea (like in the movie) and the environment around the sea that he’s describing as a metaphor for love. And personally, I think it’s a pretty accurate one too. I know just being nineteen years old it’s hard to believe, but I’m pretty confident in the fact that I’ve been in love. And trust me, love is pain (especially when it’s wrong). It hurts. When Neruda writes, “And the heart sounds like a sour conch; Calls, oh sea, oh lament, oh molten panic,” I was struck with the feeling of love. The beginning of the poem he talks about the sea going in and out and I believe that’s like the process of falling in love, because something so serious and dangerous must be tested first. And then once you have it, it’s the most beautiful feeling that you can’t help but be petrified to lose it. I believe that’s more what this poem is representing, falling in love for the second or even third or fourth time. The reader can tell that Neruda has been in love before, as he seems kind of apprehensive about falling again. However, ultimately he gives in because he knows that love can be as beautiful as the sea, even if it’s terrifying at the same time.

Finally on to 100 Years of Solitude. In the novel, I really didn’t see a lot of ‘love’ that kind of had a tie in the poem and movie, but I guess I shouldn’t really expect it with the word ‘Solitude’ in the title of the novel. In class, we kind of discussed how this translated to loneliness. I get more of a feel of loneliness from the novel, especially at the beginning. I think this is symbolized through the characterization of the characters and the events that plague them (including an actual plague). When it comes to ‘love’ in the novel, I feel like it was always for selfish reasons or reasons that existed outside of the scope of the couple. For example, Rebecca and Crespi did not last long at all as soon as Jose Arcadio came back along. And yet, just a few chapters before Rebecca was madly in love with Crespi. To me, this gives off a tone of falseness and distrust that tends to separate people, making them lonely. The village they live in also seems extremely isolated from the rest of the world. This is shown from the new inventions the gypsies bring in. The gypsies symbolizing the world and worldly knowledge being brought to this tiny village that is self-sufficient. Overall, the feeling of loneliness is very well depicted in the novel and is felt throughout.

I really think the common theme in all three of these works is the metaphor: how one thing can stand for another. In the movie, it was poetry. In the poem, it was the sea. And in the book, it was a multitude of different things. Symbolism is a powerful tool that I believe helps make the meaning more powerful for those that are willing to notice it.

WORKS CITED

Mignola, Scott G. “Il Postino: The Postman – Movie Review.” Il Postino: The Postman Movie Review. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Critic, PETER STACK Chronicle Staff. “`Postman’ Delivers Poetic Love Letters / Heartbreaking Melodrama from Italy.” SFGate. N.p., 23 June 1995. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

                100 years of solitude contains many interesting themes. A couple of themes are the confusion of time (past, present, future), the bible, and the railroad.  Each of these themes include a deeper meaning. The confusion of time has more meaning than it appears to have. The novel repeats names and personalities over and over again. In doing this time appears to never change because when someone dies another person with the same name and personality appears. This is hinted at early in the novel when the first Jose Arcardio believes time isn’t changing before he gets tied to a tree. Time eventually repeats itself. After the endless rain life is reduced to what it was at the beginning of the novel. It was like starting all over. So the overall meaning behind the confusion of time is that it appears to have never changed throughout the entire novel. The bible is another big theme in this novel. The book starts with the creation of Macondo just as god created the world in the book of Genesis. Jose and Ursula represent Adam and Eve. The rain at the end of the book represents the flood god made to restart humanity. The events that happen with the Buendias family (who represent humanity) in the novel directly correlate with the bible. Macondo is mostly isolated from the outside world. The Gypsies somewhat connect Macondo to modern things from the outside world, but the railroad represents the true arrival of the outside world in Macondo. When the railroad runs through Macondo it thrives and grows, but after the tracks break Macondo sinks back into its usual isolation.

               There are many metaphors used in the poems Walking around and Barcarole. Metaphors basically contain hidden meaning. The poem Walking around is basically about Man vs. society. The speaker states he is tired of being a man and reflects on society. The verse “And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses, into hospitals where the bones fly out the window, into shoeshops that smell like vinegar, and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin” means the speaker feels pressure walking through the streets and show the speaker is questioning societies creation. “That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline, and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel, and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night” this stanza is describing Monday as going to war with the speaker through the use of metaphors. The real meaning is the narrator is disgruntled with the material world. The metaphors also have some hidden meaning in the poem Barcarole. “If only you would touch my heart, if only you were to put your mouth to my heart, your delicate mouth, your teeth, if you were to put your tongue like a red arrow there where my dusty heart is beating” In these metaphors the speaker wants every part of the readers mouth on his heart. The significance or meaning of the mouth is all about noise. “Like a long absence, like a sudden bell, the sea doles out the sound of the heart, raining, darkening at sundown, on a lonely coast: no question that night falls and its mournful blue of the flags of shipwrecks peoples itself with planets of throaty silver” The metaphors in this stanza are meant to convey loud noise which means the intensity is picking up.

               In the film the Postman, metaphors are defined as words that enable understanding of one thing by calling it another. Metaphors are huge in the film the Postman. They allow characters like Mario to express what they’re feeling at the time. “And it is Mario, too, who proves that poetry can work to seduce women” (Ebert 47). Mario seduces Beatrice with poetry in the novel. Metaphors make up most of Pablo Neruda’s work. Poetry in this setting was admired by many. The way metaphors were formed could be as simple as wanting to describe the sea. “Mario’s simplistic questions about poetry wind up forcing Neruda to reveal some of the raw materials of his artistic vision” (Stack 40). This is how Mario gets introduced to the word metaphors. It also leads him to express his feelings and eventually get married. Therefore, metaphors had a huge impact on Mario’s life in the film. This film shows not only what metaphors did for Mario, but also what metaphors helped him express. Mario doesn’t say much because he lives in a small town, but metaphors allow him to express himself in ways he never imagined.

The use of metaphors in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Il Postino, and Pablo Neruda’s poetry is simultaneously obvious and not obvious. I personally can’t really define a metaphor. I know them when I see them, and I have probably accidentally written some before, but when directly asked what metaphors are, I freeze up. The idea itself is a little backwards. The film’s definition was somehow reassuringly vague for me: it’s a description of one thing by talking about another thing. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses symbolism to convey the title itself, while Pablo Neruda’s poetry and the poems in Il Postino use metaphors to convey a much happier emotion.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, most (if not all) of the prominent symbols point towards loneliness. Every character, at least for a certain period of time, goes through a bout of solitude. For some, this solitude is punctuated with death or is over very quickly, but others go through lifetimes of it. This loneliness is the fate of the Buendia line. It was fate for Aureliano to be born with a pig tail, it was fate to continue the naming traditions throughout the family tree, and it was the fate of the seventeen Aurelianos to be shot in the center of their Ash Wednesday crosses. All of these lines of fate led to eventual solitude in death. Garcia Marquez uses several symbols for loneliness that are individualized for the characters – Colonel Aureliano’s obsession with the golden fish, Amaranta’s black bandage, Jose Arcadio Buendia’s tree, Aureliano’s reading of Melquiades’ manuscripts, and more. Even Macondo’s eventual loneliness and isolation is shown through the deterioration of the railroad system, disconnecting the town from the outside world. My favorite symbol is Amaranta’s black bandage because it is self-inflicted. Amaranta chooses her loneliness and seems to somewhat choose her fate as a forever unmarried woman by marking herself permanently after Pietro Crespi’s suicide, wearing the black bandage of mourning for the rest of her life. Garcia Marquez establishes these symbols so that at the end of the novel, everything is tied together and made clear. The fate of the Buendia family tree is complete isolation because at the end, all the family is gone. Individually, these symbols seem random and the correlation is not totally visible. When it happens over a one hundred year period, though, the intent behind the symbols is made clear.

The film’s definition of metaphor reflected the simplicity of Neruda’s poetry, like how he opens Walking Around with “It so happens I am sick of being a man.” My favorite metaphor in this poem is “I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark, / insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep …” Neruda is tired of the monotony of routine In that poem Neruda uses metaphors and symbolism to depict loneliness like in One Hundred Years of Solitude, but he also covers the much more pleasant topic of love in other poems. In I Like for You to Be Still, Neruda writes, “You are like my soul / A butterfly of dream / And you are like the word: Melancholy.” Neruda shows that metaphors are exactly this: melancholy, a strangely warming and pensive sadness. Melancholy is the kind of word used to describe long nighttime car rides or staring out a window into the rain. Neruda’s powerful metaphors illuminate deep human sentiments that we all share but maybe don’t know how to articulate.

Roger Ebert said of Il Postino that Mario “proves that poetry can work to seduce women.” Mario’s poetry in the film, under Neruda’s tutelage, turns out more like real-life Neruda’s desperately romantic poetry than his lonely poetry reflective of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Mario’s first metaphor he creates, piggybacking on Neruda’s recitation of a poem about the ocean, is hearing the poem made him feel like a boat tossing around on the waters. Mario starts by writing what he knows, and then turns to the topic of romance by writing about Beatrice. That’s what drew Mario to Neruda in the first place – he wanted to know how he was constantly surrounded by beautiful women. Neruda’s poetry is known for its “fleshy yet surrealistic imagery” (Stack), and Mario’s adaptation of this into his poetry is what ultimately gets Beatrice’s attention.

I thought the contrast here between the use of metaphors/symbolism for inciting negative feelings and positive feelings was compelling. Garcia Marquez’s work is legendary and considered a classic, but its symbols are about loneliness and isolation and death. Neruda’s work is arguably equally famous, but most of its metaphors are pleasant (or at the very least, they give people a comforting feeling that someone understands them, as Mario showed through his first metaphor). The multiplicity of metaphors is what makes them such a crucial and versatile tool in literature.

Sources:

Ebert, Roger. “The Postman (Il Postino) Movie Review (1995).” Roger Ebert.com. N.p., 23 June 1995. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Stack, Peter. “‘Postman’ Delivers Poetic Love Letters / Heartbreaking Melodrama from Italy.” SFGate. N.p., 23 June 1995. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Metaphors are one of key tools in any artists toolbox. From dark paint in paintings (showing suffering of some kind) and words on a page, to the directions and choices in a movie, metaphors are very important.

In 100 Years of Solitude there are a lot of metaphors that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. One such is Aureliano’s little gold fishes. In the book, he returns from the war and shuts himself up in the workshop making little gold fishes for the whole day, only stopping to use the bathroom, eat, and sleep. The book describes how later on (when he quits selling them) that he just makes and remakes the same gold fish over and over. I feel like this is in itself a metaphor for the futility in existence that Aureliano see’s once he returns from war. He sees the world as an unending repeating of events: conservatives never make good on their promise, suffering never ends, etc.

A second notable symbol in 100 Years of Solitude is amarant’s burned hand that she keeps covered in black gauze. She stuck her hand into a pile of burning coals after Peitro Crespi killed himself because she would not marry him, and wore the black gauze until the day that she died, and was buried with it still on. This is a metaphor for how, in the Buendia family and in live in general, once damage is done, everyone lives with the memory of it in one way or another. Amarant lived with it by burning her hand, and made everyone else live with it in the black gauze that she never removed.

In Neruda’s poems that we were supposed to read, there are also some clear metaphors. A notable metaphor from the first poem Walking Around is the the stanza that says “Still it would be marvelous / to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily, / or kill a nun with a blow on the ear. / It would be great / to go through the streets with a green knife / letting out yells until I died of the cold.” See, I read this whole stanza to be a metaphor for rebellion and the rejection of mundane life. He  talks about doing all of these ridiculous things, for no reason other than to do them, and break the norm.

In one of his other poems, Ode to the Dictionary, there are also metaphors that have a variety of possible meanings. As a whole, I would say that this poem is in and of itself a metaphor for the importance of words. Words (especially from Neruda) have always had a tremendous impact on people and ideas, because one change of tune, or putting something into words gives it more power than it once had, and I think that Ode to the Dictionary is Neruda’s way of showing that. This idea is made clearer in the part that says “and the words / shone in its bottomless cup / dull or sonorous / fertile in the fronds of language, / loaded with truth and sound.”

On top of those two sources, I have yet another that shows the power and importance of metaphors in conveying the true meaning of something. Il Postino, the film we watched, is full of conversations, and proof of how powerful  the right metaphor can be. The film has been described as “an unforgettable, poetic romance” (STACK) and “a quiet meditation on fate, tact, and poetry” (EDBERT). The film deals with poetry and metaphors in a wide variety of ways. One of the notable ones, was when Mario used one of Neruda’s poems to win over Beatrice, and causes a scandal throughout the town because of nudity (which Mario had not seen up to that point). This scene just goes to show the amount of power a metaphor can have, and what it can do to those who see/hear it.

Another moment when we see metaphors come up in an important way is when Mario and Neruda are sitting on the beach, and Mario asks Neruda to teach him how to make metaphors. Neruda just explains that they just come to him, because that’s how he thinks, and that there isn’t a set way to make a metaphor, as long as it is, in itself a metaphor. This scene is a metaphor in itself because it means that everything is only what you make of it, and that there is not set path for anyone to take, so long as they make the path their own.

Citations:

Critic, PETER STACK Chronicle Staff. “`Postman’ Delivers Poetic Love Letters / Heartbreaking Melodrama from Italy.” SFGate. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2016. <http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Postman-Delivers-Poetic-Love-Letters-3029991.php&gt;.

“Even the most sublime idea seems foolish if heard too often.” So says the character Pablo Neruda in Michael Radford’s film Il Postino. The movie develops this concept more fully with the “metafori” that Neruda and Mario seem to love so much. In the movie, metaphors are portrayed as something unaffected; unlike the complexity and ornateness that most people seem to associate with poetry, Il Postino revolves around the idea that metaphors, and by extension poetry, should flow as naturally as the sea that Neruda is so enchanted with. Like Peter Stack wrote, “’The Postman’ comes as close as any film to uncovering the working heart of poetry, how it need not be arcane…”. Like Neruda’s character discusses in the poem, poetry isn’t static; it’s always changing, able to be interpreted in so many different ways. James Berardinelli also points out that the main character of Il Postino, Mario, makes “startlingly insightful observations” about the nature of poetry, like “the whole world is a metaphor for something.” This is true- metaphors can be found everywhere in the world around us. Poetry, like life, is an evocative experience and can’t be clearly defined in terms of black and white. Multiple creators develop metaphors in this way, integrating and interweaving them flawlessly into their works, until you cannot have the one without the other.

One of these works is One Hundred Years of Solitude; Marquez’s book plays with a variety of themes, as it takes the reader through multiple generations of the Buendia family. One of the most notable of these themes, as told in the title, is the concept of solitude, or loneliness. In everyday parlance solitude and loneliness seem to go hand in hand; however, as the book demonstrates, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Most of the characters in One Hundred Years demonstrate signs of regression at some point in their lives. They deteriorate, usually mental, and retreat further and further into themselves, shunning the rest of society in favor of their own company. Two examples of this are Jose Arcadio Buendia (JAB) and Fernanda. For most of his life, Jose Arcadio is at odds with the people of Macondo, and even his own wife. This isolation, or loneliness, of his stems from the fact that his obsessive fascination with all of these new inventions and changes clash with the sleepy, old-fashioned town of Macondo. For Fernanda, she is absurdly stubborn, persisting in holding on to her notions of elegance and class. She doesn’t convince anyone with her claims of a superior background, and only succeeds in alienating her husband’s family with her refusal to let go of her delusions of grandeur. These two characters are very, very different- however, towards the ends of their lives, they demonstrate eerily similar traits. At some point in their lives, Jose Arcadio Buendia and Fernanda both experience a rapid mental deterioration. This is most evident in Jose Arcadio, who spends the end of his life tied like a dog to a tree outside, speaking in a supposedly nonsensical language that we only later find out is Latin. Fernanda is locked up in a house that is literally falling to pieces around her, walking around in decaying outfits of aspiring splendor. What strikes us as similar here is the fact that both of these characters were experiencing extreme levels of solitude; both mentally and physically, they are detached from the outside world that had once been so alienated from. Yet, locked up as they are, both characters eventually seem to experience some sort of release. The farther Jose Arcadio retreats mentally, away from reality, the closer he comes to finding the truth that he so desperately sought in earlier days; and Marquez perfectly encapsulates Fernanda’s transformation as the narrator writes that, “She became human in her solitude.” (363). In these real and imagined prisons these two characters’ solitude gives them a sense freedom and peace that they were sorely lacking earlier in their lives. Solitude, then, in Marquez’s novel has a deeper meaning than just being by oneself; here, solitude also holds conn0tations of freedom.In their solitude, the fact that they are in a sense, bound to where they are does not prevent them from experiencing a sense of freedom that they did not have back when they were living life surrounded by other people.

Pablo Neruda never seems to run out of images and metaphors for his poetry, but this is most clearly seen in this one poem Barcarole. In this poem, metaphor and meaning go hand in hand. Pablo Neruda writes about a man suffering from the loneliness of what seems to be an unrequited love. Neruda talks about waiting for a sign from the woman he loves, a sign that will release him from his loneliness and finally unite the two. Neruda writes about his wish for the woman he loves to blow upon his “dusty” (5) heart; the word “dusty” has the connotation of an object (here, the heart) discarded, shoved away and left to gather dust on the shelf. Were Neruda’s lover to breathe on his heart, breathe new life into him, Neruda claims that his heart would make the a “drowsy sound” (7). With the use of the word “drowsy”, Neruda implies the awakening of his heart, as if, before his lover came along to awaken him, it had been lying dormant for a very long time. Neruda’s love is like the sound of “foghorns in some dismal port…” (13), a lonesome, eerie echo that speaks of his isolation. The idea of Neruda’s lover blowing upon his heart to produce this sorrowful, almost wistful sound is metaphorically represented in this poem by the sea and a conch shell. If pressed to your ear, conch shells are supposed to make a sound similar to that of the ocean’s waves. However, this sound is nothing more than a poor imitation, and Neruda relates this to the sound of his heart, of his latent love, as he waits for the day for his lover to awaken him. “And the heart sounds like a sour conch/ calls oh sea, oh lament….” (26-27). Without reciprocation from the woman he loves, Neruda’s own love is small and weak in comparison of what the two of them could share. The metaphors in this poem are fluid, one flowing into the other, calling to mind how the “metafori” is defined in Il Postino. In one stanza, Neruda’s heart is echoed in the sea itself: “Like a long absence”; in another stanza, Neruda is like a boat lost at sea, waiting in solitude for the sound of his foghorn to be returned by the one he loves.

Works Cited

Stack, Peter “‘Postman’ Delivers Poetic Love Letters/ Heartbreaking Melodrama from Italy.” SFGate, 23 June 1995, http://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Postman-Delivers-Poetic-Love-Letters-3029991.php. Accessed 13 October 2016.

James Berardinelli. “The Postman (Il Postino).” Reel Views, 1995, http://www.reelviews.net/reelviews/postman-the-il-postino. Accessed 13 October 13, 2016.

Il Postino. Directed by Michael Radford, Miramax Films, 1994.

In the 4 pieces of art, “100 Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Post Man directed by Michael Radford, “Walking Around” by Pablo Neruda, and “I Like for you to be still” by Pablo Neruda we see clear examples of metaphors. In this post I am going to define metaphor as “two objects or ideas being compared either specifically mentioned or implied”. These metaphors serve several different purposes depending on the context in which they are used. However, in all 4 pieces of art we can see that some metaphors are used to further characterize either characters in the art or people in general. The characterization of the characters is used to then emphasize a theme.

An example from 100 Years of Solitude is the arrival of the gypsies and their scientific equipment at the beginning of the book such as magnets. The things that are being compared in this metaphor are the gypsies representing outside influences on Southern America such as European Culture. The scientific items like the magnifying glass are used to represent the technology and ideas the outside influences brought with them. This metaphor is used by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in order to help characterize Jose Arcadio Buendia as an energetic person that easily becomes obsessive into new ideas. We see this the way he spends nights and so much effort trying to develop weapons from the magnifying glass or find gold with the magnets. This characterization of Jose Arcadio Buendia is used to develop the theme of being careful when introduced to new ideas and technology. This is especially clear when we find out the way he turns crazy and has to be tied up to a tree until his death

When we see the poem “Walking Around” by Pablo Neruda a clear metaphor is when he uses the line “Kill a nun with a blow on the ear”. The nun represents society, since nuns are sometimes thought up as being strict we can see the representation of society as one that is very strict and demanding. The blow on the ear is a metaphor for Neruda somehow getting back at society or disrupting the order of things. Since he says he would take pleasure in this act we can clearly characterize him as a person who is tired with society and the order of things. This helps drive the theme of the poem which is life is difficult and sometimes we get tired along the way.

The poem “I Like for you to be still” by Pablo Neruda is different from the previous one but still has plenty examples of metaphors if we focus on the metaphor where he compares his lover to the night sky. We can see that he means she is very beautiful when she is still. We can use this metaphor to characterize the lover as a beautiful woman that is being still at the moment. We can also characterize the narrator as being someone who is at peace in his current situation. This characterization helps Neruda deliver his theme of appreciating certain moments of peace such as laying down next to your lover and appreciating the people you spend these moments with.

In the movie “The Postman” we can see the usage of metaphors all throughout the movie, but I want to focus on the specific metaphor when Marco recites Poetry to Beatrice, and in his poem he compares Beatrice’s smile to a butterfly. This obviously characterizes Beatrice as being beautiful and characterizes Marco as being in love. However, if we look deeper into the context of the story we can see that Marco is now a person who know what he wants. This is huge because at the beginning we see Mario as a person who seems lost even at home with his father. The first time we see Mario, the hero of “The Postman,” we think perhaps he is retarded (Ebert). This leads us to think that something has changed Marco. I think the change in Marco came from his new friendship with Pablo Neruda. “with Mario providing a sounding board for Neruda’s ideas and Neruda teaching Mario about poetry and its relationship to life.” (Berardinelli). The relationship with Pablo sort of woke Mario up from his simple life he now wanted to write, get the girl, and eventually stand up to the government that used the people. So in the end the simple metaphor comparing a butterfly to Beatrice’s smile helps emphasize the theme that friendships can change someone’s life for the better and create a better future

“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges.” – Gene Wolf, Shadow & Claw

Symbolism – the principle topic in every discussion of every novel my high school English classes read. The silver dollar in In Cold Blood, the turtle in The Grapes of Wrath, and, in a book chock-full of symbolism, the most perfect, most hauntingly meaningful symbol I’ve encountered: Gatsby’s green light. We spent far too long sitting in our circles trying to decipher these and many others in our several years of class, while our ancient teacher leaned back in her chair, sometimes laughing quietly to herself as we struggled, having known the meaning of each and every symbol in each and every book for at least a thousand years. Gary Casey and I consistently agreed upon concrete meanings for symbols, and were consistently believed by our classmates. But when we all looked to Doctor Sorrells in unison, still unsure, she would often shrug and throw her tiny, arthritic hands in the air, saying, “I don’t know!”

We were generally pretty upset by this. What we never seemed to realize is that she was prompting us to reexamine our symbol, to give it new possible meanings, and to fail, more often than not, to settle on just one. It was a careful lesson that most of us never took to heart: symbols are poetry. They transcend the definition and limitations of ordinary literary devices and change, like living things, with time and with their interpreter.

The film Il Postino is “a quiet meditation on fate, tact, and poetry” (Ebert). In its meditation on poetry it examines symbols and metaphors – metáfori, those wonderful arrangements of words which do not mean what they say – as parts of telling a story. Mario is initially interested in using metaphors to seduce women. He then falls in love with a woman named Beatrice, forcing him to look deeper into what metaphors really are. He says at one point, “the whole world is a metaphor for something,” without even realizing exactly how thought-provoking his comment is (Berardinelli). The film examines metaphors in a traditional sense, but there is a nontraditional subtext which calls into question their very definition. Is a metaphor only a literary tool? Words which mean something more? The sun is a symbol of hope and courage, so is the dawn, which alerts us to itself not with words but with warmth and light, not a metaphor for greatness? It certainly can be and has been a traditional metaphor in literature, but there is a question as to whether it was a metaphor before man wrote poetry, before man wrote, before man was. A metaphor is then, in a sense, inherent in the universe, independent of word.

On an only slightly less convoluted and pretentious note, the poetry of Pablo Neruda abounds with symbols and metaphors. It seems that there is nothing in the human experience that Neruda could not reduce to a color, a place, an everyday object. In “Walking Around,” he writes about his deep, ancient weariness of simply existing. It is disgusting to him now, innately gross and pointless and tiring. He says all of this very, very simply with his metaphor of the felt swan steering his way through waters littered by wombs and ashes. The wombs symbolize birth, the ashes death, and the waters life. Living has taken on that soggy, weighty feeling of wet felt as he navigates the waters aimlessly, slowly, like a swan.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, much like The Great Gatsby, was virtually a catalog of symbols. There were no questions of details left unanswered, no loose ends not tied up, and seemingly not one object in Macondo that wasn’t symbolic. Fernanda’s golden chamber pot, for which she would accept no substitute, was just a bowl for shit – a metaphor for her arrogant, self-important attitude and customs which disguised a woman as base and human as everyone else in her home. The railroad which comes to Macondo, quickly bringing gringos and their industry, symbolizes the intrusion of that industry into the lives of people. This somewhat Marxist sentiment is seen throughout the novel in the unionizing of the banana factory workers and in the efforts of the rebels fighting under Colonel Aureliano Buendia in his thirty-two civil wars.

There is no literature without symbolism. At least, there is no great literature without symbolism, in the same way that there is no great art without contrast,  no great food without flavor. Symbolism is the lifeblood of poetry. It’s the true meaning in every story, just barely hidden by everyday objects. Even this weak conclusion is a symbol of the futility of effort in a universe that does not care about us.