Journey_Speech

ENGLISH SPEECH The ambiguous, alternate worlds of the imagination provide a link between the real and the unreal. Imaginative journeys allow the subconscious mind to freely evaluate and challenge society’s values, allowing the individual to overcome various obstacles and dilemmas, uninhibited by the binding limitations encountered within everyday life. Such freedom results in the individual gaining a greater sense of self, through the comprehensive evaluation of society. The surreal, magical worlds created by composers through a variety of language, film and visual techniques inspire and astonish the audience, causing them to speculate and question the norm. Tim Burton’s ‘Big Fish’ and Margaret Atwood’s ‘Journey to the interior’ are two different mediums – a film and a free verse poem, they both are illustrative of the techniques exerted by composers to create the imaginative and inner journey. Tim Burton’s ‘Big Fish’ film revolves around Edward Bloom telling his story to his son, Will Bloom. We as the audience witness the absurd, yet magical story of Edwards view on himself from a different perspective as a hero. The concept of journey is present in the film through flashbacks which are Edwards’s memories. In the flashbacks the responder is shown the concept of journeys having obstacles. The use of Camera Tricks distinguishes flashbacks in-the-present action. The flashbacks are consistently more entertaining, magical, and rewarding. Part of this is due to the immobility of the action in the present time. In ‘Big Fish’, the flashbacks are used to exhibit Edwards’s memory, although a memory is an existentialist theory as it is not a reliable source. “You become what you always were – a very big fish” said by will to his father, relates to the inner and the imaginative journey Edward embarks on as a fish which he eventually becomes one, implying that Edward reincarnates into a fish. In the scene where Edward bloom is dying, the camera cuts through reality and the story. In reality the effect of the blue lighting conveys a clinical aura and the grief of the characters. Although In the imaginative story, the lighting is bright and natural which has a magical affect to it. The effect of the bright light over Edwards’s wife, Sandra is effective as it is a depiction of the heroic archetype; as Sandra is the love interest in the film. The hooks in the opening scene of the film are also part of the heroic archetype; it metaphorically links back to Edwards’s journey and the obstacles he overcomes as a hero, until he returns from the journey with the ‘Elixir’. The effect of the establishing shot in the opening scene is that it captures the fish movement, navigating the hooks which represents Edwards journey as he is metaphorically linked to the fish. Similar themes are raised within Margaret Atwood’s “Journey to The Interior in which the poet encourages responders to undertake an imaginative journey due to the necessity of gaining a greater understanding of self. Like wise in Big Fish, as Will bloom tried to understand who he really is through his father’s stories. In the poem Atwood discusses the physical journey through a dense and sometimes confusing landscape. “A tangle of braches, a net of air and alternate light and dark.” The journey is “not easy going,” and there is nothing that can be used as a guiding source “a compass is useless, also trying to take directions from the movement of the sun which are erratic.” This is where the concept of an inner journey comes into play. Atwood uses the Canadian landscape as a metaphor for the mind and encourages one to take an imaginative journey into the mind. Atwood also succeeds on taking us on an imaginative journey through the use of her intricate and descriptive imagery, “the hills which the eyes make flat as a wall…” The imaginative journey that the responder is taken on allows us to question how we could go about facing difficult journeys in our own lives. The metaphor of travelling through scrub or bushland is suitable for describing a journey as it highlights the fact that the journeys we go on, physical, inner or imaginative are rarely easy or direct. She discusses the distractions and dangers that we encounter while on a journey which is also evident in Edward blooms journey. Therefore both explore the inner journey which involves imagination and overcoming many obstacles resulting in an individual to gain a greater sense of self.