Summary:
Imaginative mental journeys understood through five selected text: Three Samuel Coleridge poems, "The Wizard of Oz" film, and "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles.
Throughout life people often leave reality to go on a journey through their imagination. Composers create imaginative texts to help stimulate the responder to embark on this journey. I strongly believe that yes, it is the journey and not the arrival that truly matters. I have five texts that will inevitably support my argument on this topic. My texts being; the poem's Kubla Khan and This Lime tree bower, my prison by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The ivory trail book cover from the board of studies booklet, the song Yellow submarine by the Beatles and the film The wizard of oz directed by Victor Fleming.
In the poem Kubla Khan, Coleridge takes the responder on an imaginative journey. In the first part of the poem Coleridge describes the beauty and terror of Xanadu. 'Where Alph the sacred river ran... Ancestral voices prophesising war'. This use of incredibly powerful language inspires feelings of great force, encouraging the reader to further connect on another level, through their imagination, with Coleridge. Thus taking them on a wonderful imaginative journey.
The second part of the poem is written after an interruption, leaving Coleridge unable to recreate his experience through words. The last stanza represents this situation, of a frustrated artist, who is longing for that burst of inspiration that underpins the whole poem's existence. 'To such a deep delight twould win me... I would build that dome in air'. It is through this sentence that it becomes clear to the reader that the imaginative journey to Xanadu is more important than the arrival, as there is no real arrival.
The poem, This lime tree bower, my prison deals especially with the journey itself, rather than the arrival. In this poem Coleridge is unable to accompany his friends on a nature walk due to an injury. This leaves Coleridge upset and fr
ustrated giving the first five lines a mood of resentment and self pity. This is shown through key words such as 'well,' 'remain' 'prison' and 'lost'. However by the end of the poem Coleridge didn't care that he had not attended the walk, 'tis well to be bereft of promis'd good'.
The main idea in this poem is that solitude is a good thing as it allows one to be alone with their thoughts, which is what the romantics believed in. Due to this solitude Coleridge was able to 'lift the soul and contemplate', this teaching him be satisfied with his current surroundings. Thus Coleridge was capable of enjoying the nature walk through the power of his imagination.
In both Kubla Khan and This lime tree bower, my prison the journey was so intense, leaving the ending/ arrival highly less significant. This therefore supports my thesis, the journey not the arrival matters.
The ivory trail book cover from the board of studies website also supports my thesis. In this text the responder is taken on a journey through the eyes of a woman, starting at desert sands heading up towards the ancient pyramids of Egypt through to a Middle Eastern place with prayer towers. The shot of the woman's face is set in contrast to the desert sands, the first stage of the journey, thus emphasising that journey is imaginative. This book cover is all the responder has to entice them to buy it, so it therefore clearly doesn't have an ending, as they are left to imagine what the book may contain.
In the top right hand corner of the book cover there is a sentence which states, 'Not all journeys have an ending'. This sentence is written in white against a background which changes from a bright colour through to a black, this takes the responder on a journey even whilst simply reading this sentence. This sentence strongly supports my thesis, because without an ending there is no arrival and without an arrival it can only be the journey that matters.
This text links very well with the poem Kubla Khan, as that journey also did not have an ending. Coleridge was unable to complete his imaginative journey as he was interrupted. Therefore clearly in both these texts it's the journey that matters, not the arrival.
In the song Yellow submarine by the Beatles, the responder is taken on a journey under the sea. They are asked to imagine what life would be like living under sea, in a yellow submarine. The lines '... till we found a sea of green, and we lived beneath the waves' inspires the responders imagination, thus taking up the imaginative journey the composer has created. The composer sends out a feeling of fulfilment and satisfaction through the lines 'As we live a life of ease, every one of us has all we need'. The techniques of rhyming and repetition in this song also instigate feelings of excitement. Once the song has finished the responder has gone on a wonderful imaginative journey, although not really arriving anywhere. This song therefore links well with the book cover, The ivory trail, and strongly supports my thesis.
The wizard of OZ, a film directed by Victor Fleming, supports my thesis in total. In the beginning of the film Dorothy is unhappy with her surroundings and family, she dreams of going to a place beyond the rainbows. She is then carried away by a tornado from her Kansas home to the strange and wonderful Land of Oz. She sets out on a journey in search of a way to get home. In the end she wakes up to find it was all a dream, therefore making the journey imaginative as dreams are the archetypal of the imagination. When she is in the tornado, the director has used strange and eerie music to signify to the responder how Dorothy is feeling at this time. This same music is used in several scary scenes of the film. Throughout the film Dorothy is wearing red shoes given to her by a guardian angel, these shoes symbolise her hope of getting home. It is on this journey to get home that Dorothy learns to appreciate her surroundings at home and be satisfied with what she has, as did Coleridge in the poem, Lime tree bower. It is therefore the imaginative journey and not the arrival that has been highly significant in both these texts, powerfully supporting my thesis.
Imaginative journey's occur all the time in one's mind, and it is on these journeys that we learn, discover and experience life in a way not viable with reality. It is not the arrival that teaches us what we learn but the journey it has taken us to get to our final destination. This thesis is inevitably proven in all my above texts. There can be no arrival without the journey.
This is the complete article, containing 1,112 words
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).
