Metaphors of Love and Loneliness

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.