Metaphors: A Subconscious Journey to
Awareness
Metaphor enlivens each encounter in literature.
This literary device engages readers individually even as the author metaphorically
comments on a larger picture, current events in society, etc.
Against an urban backdrop, both Josè Saramago, late
20th century Portuguese author of All the Names, and Joaquim
Maria Machado de Assis, late 19th century Brazilian author of The
Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, write about their protagonists’
particular life experiences and equally, about a shared, human experience. This
inhalation and exhalation of human being and being human is separated and
explored with fictional characters and metaphoric comparisons. Highlighting a strategy common in both
stories, the use and need for metaphoric comparisons is the best method of
explaining the subtle intention of these authors, that is, to be timeless.
Their intention to be universal for modern society and for the cosmopolitan
reader arrives often with another intended purpose, to distort reality.
Comparing both stories, it seems the intention of this distortion is not to
provide distance or to hide an authors’ agenda, but rather, so as to be
explicit about their agenda and simultaneously, always present, current, relevant
in the now.
Notably, whenever the context seems to
transcend the literal storyline, through digressions into idiosyncratic details
about a person, place, or object, this distortion or perversion of realism is accompanied
by metaphor. These devices of surreal digressive detail and metaphorical
realization propel a linear storyline while they also distort perceptions of
the reader’s conscious reality. Saramago and Machado de Assis explore their
real world from the safety and vantage point of fictional characters anchored
by realism. Exploration through metaphor intentionally blurs or clarifies, as
the author intends to freely manipulate their readers by conveying shared experiences
from a voyeuristic view through & into the consciousness of their fictional
characters. These characters are themselves, in both texts, fictional narrators
writing in the first person. This point of view immediately and intimately,
connects with readers. Referring to themselves as I, me, we, us, each character records their thoughts, digressions,
secrets, and experiences from an introspective and/or retrospective lens. The
reader, too, becomes the main character. Combined with the detailed
idiosyncrasies of these fictional narrators’ unconventionally divided, double
voiced, deviant prose, readers are affected subconsciously as well as made more
conscious of countless other subtle nuances and metaphors as they travel the literature’s
thought-provoking landscape.
Grandson to freed slaves, the freedom felt by
Machado in his writing is clear. He explores with deadly humor. He shows readers a “deceptive realism, a kind of
realism that allegorically describes, in a very devious and disguised way, the
social realities of nineteenth century Brazil” (xviii). Referred to as poultice in the beginning, and again,
the book’s end, The Bras Cubas Poultice
(203), this “hodge-podge of things
and people” (66) is a recurring metaphor and the overarching theme of the
story. A metaphoric description of this mental poultice is offered by Bràs Cubas
(who might be voicing Machado de Assis’ own novelistic point of view /
experience): “My brain was a stage on which plays of all kinds were presented:
sacred dramas, austere, scrupulous, elegant comedies, wild farces, short skits,
buffoonery, pandemonium, sensitive soul…” (66), but that is not to say
metaphors resist carrying reality with them, as evident from the aforementioned
quote. While no one can have all these plays actually occurring in their mind
simultaneously, it is possible to contemplate the emotions being invoked by
each adjective and immediately empathize with desire to experience: sacred, austere, scrupulous, elegant, wild,
short, sensitive…pandemonium throughout our lives. This emotional
connection to the reader, the character, and by default, the author, is a writing
skill worth noting. Metaphors explain by exploration of the subconscious in
ways impossible without analogies to indicate otherwise invisible, complex
connections.
Once these actual authors have earned their
reader’s interests and trust, one begins to see through their focused lens and
realize there is a literal context in every abstract metaphor. Cubas points out
one literal context in the beginning of his book by paying homage “To the
Worm/Who/Gnawed the Cold Flesh/of My Corpse.” With each read, the worm becomes
the reader, the critic, society, and then an actual worm again. Be it “a simple
matter of botany” (125), his worm allegory, or how “man’s lip isn’t like the
hoof of Attila’s horse, which sterilized the ground it trod. Quite the
opposite” (76), Cubas is no stranger to comparing or contrasting nature with
man to suit his metaphoric agenda. That is, metaphor becomes a means of
critiquing, double voiced, for the actual author and for the fictional
narrator. Cubas even mentions subordinate classes of people by a metaphoric
comparison to a black butterfly
announcing, “See how fine it is to be superior to butterflies!” And then he
“gave a flick, and the corpse fell into the garden,” he thinks, “it would have
been better had it been born blue” (62). This is not only commentary on race
but various social hierarchies the author intends to criticize by way of
comparable metaphor.
In Saramago’s All the Names, he
implements the same literary device and focused freedom to write a fictional,
realistic world. He dominates his pages with metaphor while warning through the
musing of his protagonist: “It is the search that
gives meaning to any find,” thinks Señhor Josè, “and that one often has to
travel a long way in order to arrive at what is near” (53). Señhor
Josè is fascinated by famous people and keeps a scrapbook. Señhor Josè is not
only the main character but the only
character with a proper name regardless of being a subordinate clerk at the
Central Registry. Most importantly, he is a deep thinking recluse whose reality
is constantly shaped by his clichéd consciousness, lack of self-awareness, and
overarching metaphoric philosophy. Señhor Josè says, “Metaphors have always
been the best way of explaining things” (228).
Perhaps the most obvious metaphor in All the
Names, is the character of the shepherd. He is a lone man, even outcast by
the city cemetery unless he arrives in the early hours of each new day with his
flock of sheep to graze, and particularly, graze near the graves of the outcast
dead in the land of suicides. While
some metaphors are more obvious, such as the noticeable references to Christianity
in the sheep and shepherd, metaphors are fluent in this scene regardless of
religious context. Consider: the time of day, location of cemetery in relation
to city, location within the cemetery, octopus
arms to describe the complex map of the cemetery, the parallel of walls
being moved in the cemetery and the Central Registry to make room for the
living and dead—this complex layering of context on subtext is like the way the
dead seem to keep stacking up yet one must recognize that each soul is no less,
an individual. The shepherd, has agreed to tell Señhor Josè a secret, “the
truth about the land of suicides” (204) but first, the shepherd is making Josè
swear he will keep the secret. Josè says, “I swear by all that I hold most
sacred” but seems unsure of what that empty sentence means. Then, they agree to
swear on their honor and this next exchange is what pushes Señhor Josè beyond
the point of no return; he cannot go back to his previous self once the secret
becomes known to him. (Note:
capitalization following a comma typically signals a new speaker, context dictating
above all)
The shepherd says to Josè,
Swear on your honour, that used to be the
surest oath, All right then, I’ll swear on my honor, but, you know, the head of
the Central Registry would die laughing if he heard one of his clerks swearing
on his honour, Between a shepherd and a clerk it’s a serious enough oath, not
laughable at all, so we’ll stick to that… (204).
It seems the equal standing of shepherd and
clerk, metaphoric representations of outcast and subordinate, coupled with the
dismissal of the Central Registry’s authority as “not laughable at all,” imply
that there is individual honor that cannot be disregarded by the inventions of
modern society nor the technologies of government. That is, unless the
individual is complacent in sacrificing their honor.
“Not everything here is what it seems” (204)
confesses the shepherd. The secret is out that the shepherd is changing the
numbers on the graves every time he enters the cemetery with his flock of
sheep. Josè initially says, “you make death a farce” and of the secret, he
thinks, “[t]hat it’s possible not to see a lie even when it’s right in front of
us” (205). Immediately, Señhor Josè’s reaction resonates with any reader who has
had their trust betrayed. At the onset, Señhor Josè hasn’t thought inwardly
about how this applies to himself, yet. Señhor Josè is beginning to realize the
implications of the shepherd’s intention. After he has time to contemplate the shepherd’s
secret, he understands life on a more holistic basis. “The workings of chance
are infinite” (207). Life’s metaphysics and physical world are separate
realities that both constantly cross paths with each other’s reality, affecting
causes, causing effects. Woven by awareness, among one and of the other, this physical
and metaphysical connection is not always clear. For example, both literal and
metaphoric, the character of the shepherd in All the Names is randomly
making each outcast grave equally wept upon by the misguided living. “I don’t
believe one can show greater respect than to weep for a stranger” (205), says
the shepherd.
Like Josè, throughout the
memoirs, readers see Cubas motivated by the material world: popular culture,
women, and social constructs. All these subjects offer a personal reward to
Cubas. He is motivated by pleasing his ego. All his actions seem to be based on
how the reaction will pay-off or reward Cubas in some way(s) or another. This
characteristic, while more subtle, is evident in the clerk, Señhor Josè, too.
Whether comparing Cubas’ justified adultery with Virgilia in the name of love
or Señhor Josè’s frequent break-ins to the Central Registry and falsifying
information for understanding of a woman, or back again to Bras Cubas for returning
the gold coin, gaining public favor and admiration and utilizing turns of
phrase to gain the reader’s trust in his writing akin to Señhor Josè’s
justifications in dialogues within himself (himself as a reader) including incessant
use of manipulated clichés like, “while it is true that you catch no flies with
vinegar, it is no less true that some you can’t even catch with honey,” (43) in
order to justify his self-serving actions; these two have much in common.
Josè’s complete understanding of the shepherd’s
intimate connection to the dead and the living becomes textually evident when Josè
has just left the unknown woman’s home. Knowing she committed suicide and having
literally lain on the unknown woman's bed, hearing her voice on the answering
machine, he stops himself short of pleasuring himself. This is a sign he has
transcended carnal urges, he gains a respect for the unknown dead he only
reserved previously and artificially, for famous people. However, “what helped
him leave, apparently, was the painful memory of his old, darned socks and his
bony, white shins with their sparse hairs. Nothing in the world makes any
sense,” (234). The metaphor of his old age in his socks is hinting to his new
respect for death. Clued by painful
memory, Josè begins another mental digression but this time, after
realizing he will not have a justifiable excuse for a full days’ absence at the
Central Registry, he makes a decision. “Perhaps the shepherd needs an assistant
to help him change the numbers on the graves,…, there’s no reason why he should
limit himself to suicides, the dead are all equal, what you can do to some you
can do to all (234). In addition to exploring the lives of any dead person
versus only the suicides, the author is suggesting a double meaning that Josè
is also no longer suicidal, no longer only at home among the suicides, as
mentioned in a previous scene. Moreover, the last line, “the dead are all
equal, what you can do to some you can do to all” (234) both has a universal
truth and a perverse tone to reality. This and the
shepherd-number-changing-apprenticeship suggested by “perhaps the shepherd
needs an assistant” forces the reader back to the oath of honor between clerk
and shepherd. Readers become witness to the literal and metaphoric
transformation of Señhor Josè.
After reading Bras Cubas’ retrospective
experiences, a very similar transformation occurs. Ironically, the metaphor
spoken by Bras Cubas to himself in the context of his and everyone’s
ever-fleeting life, “Miserable leaves of my cypress of death, you shall fall
like any others, beautiful and brilliant as you are. And, if I had eyes, I
would shed a nostalgic tear for you” (111) makes an interesting comparison
between the two stories. This metaphor instigates an imagining of Cubas weeping
for all that is temporal and therefor beautiful, particularly, seeing himself
as a larger part of humanity. Arguably still connected to his ego, by weeping
for one, even if a little sarcastic in claiming nostalgia his motive, he is
nevertheless weeping for all of mankind, selflessly. Perhaps the author,
Machado, may be serious while Bras Cubas is mocking. And, if I had eyes…this elevated language perhaps, has more to do
with being blind in life than lost in darkness, though the only permanent
darkness is death. You shall fall, he
cries both to and for all his miserable leaves, his lost sheep, to apply another metaphor, the way an old man can die in
his sleep and considered by the family to have lost him in the night.
Bras Cubas’ philosophy seems almost parallel to
the shepherd of the cemetery in All the Names, who says to Señhor Josè,
“I don’t believe one can show greater respect that to weep for a stranger”
(205). The shepherd is responding to Josè’s disgust at mixing the assigned numbers
to the names of the dead and therefore randomizing the actual locale of the
dead, misguiding the search of living persons for their loved ones that have
passed on.
As prevalent as metaphor, there is an
undeniable common theme of life and death in these stories. Mixing realism with
fiction allows the stories to transcend time as much as metaphors allow the
characters to noticeably, though ambiguously, transcend their old habits to new
convictions. The authors’ fascination with unknown persons or unknown parts of
people is more about exploring themselves. They are searching for a common
denominator, for belonging, for a meaning to not just their own lives, but life.
So too, if the characters represent the ideas of the authors which represent
the ideas, emotions, and experiences of the universal human, then the
exploration of these text is as relevant to the universal reader now as it was
to the incredible writers of the texts. Above all, admitted by readers or not,
it seems these authors are suggesting one reality— everyone is searching. Everyone
wants to find their purpose and everyone knows the feeling of not knowing their
purpose. Our desire or intention to become increasingly self-aware in order to
understand being human is perhaps why,
one
often has to travel a long way in order to arrive at what is near.
We’re born human; but it would
take a shepherd to guide us after death and a retrospective memoir written from
purgatory to really figure this life stuff out were it not, thankfully, for the
metaphor.
Works Cited
1.
Saramago, Josè. All the Names, Trans. Margaret
Jull Costa. New York San Diego London: Harcourt,
Inc., 1999. Print.
2.
Machado De Assis, Joaquim Maria. The
Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, Trans. Gregory
Rabassa. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.
