Journeys That Open the Mind

“JOURNEYS THAT OPEN THE MIND”

Traveling from city to city, country to country on a compelling, intriguing adventurous personal experience which can then lead to the stimulation of an imaginative or inner journey while overcoming many obstacles and challenges along the way. To receive the reward of any journey, you are challenged physically, emotionally and intellectually.

As this quote states

‘If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all. -Buckley.’

This quote identifies the struggles throughout a journey and the way humans react to such things.

This exhibition ‘Journeys that open the mind’ has been planned to showcase the variety of texts in different media which deal with Journeys. In this opening presentation I will discuss my observations and understandings of how journey is portrayed and how physical journeys have ‘opened my mind’ by exploring three different texts: Immigrants at Central Station, 1951 from The Immigrants Chronicle , Journeys over land and sea from the Stimulus Booklet and the film Titanic which is directed by James Cameron.

Let us start with Immigrants at Central Station, 1951 written by Peter Skrzynecki in The Immigrants Chronicle. These migrants begin on a busy train platform waiting apprehensively for their train from Parkes Migrant Centre to Sydney, waiting to commence their fresh life awaiting them. The people of the crowded train station move quickly and suddenly as the train guard blows the whistle.

The emotions of the travelers is combined with the physical environment when Skrzynecki says

But we ate it all:

The silence, the cold, the benevolence

Of empty streets.

This particular stanza has an impact on the audience as it assists them with the physical atmosphere leading to the Journey.

The audience is then suddenly shocked with quote ‘the trains whistle so suddenly’. This once again changes the physical atmosphere of the poem, moving into the next stage of the physical journey. This journey that is being taken upon by difficult, dark and doubtful travelers is waited for without a sound, uncomplainingly, being conscious of each phase of the journey as they move from phase to phase.

Techniques used in this poem to help us understand the notion of a physical journey are the use of similes, personification, paradox, evocative language and rhythm.

Quote ‘Like a word of command’ makes the audience realizes that these migrants are compelled to take this particular phase of the journey.

Quote ‘Like cattle bought for slaughter’ is the comparison between animals and humans who both in this particular simile represent the journey to the unknown.

Personification is a technique used through this poem to help me understand the notion of physical journeys. Quote ‘Time waited anxiously with us’ and quote ‘While time ran ahead’ gives the audience the sense of the journey to the unknown once again which they seem to have no control over.

The first three stanzas use repetition to reinforce the imagery of the silent migrants waiting patiently for the train they are about to embark upon to the new life. The fourth stanza is then ‘suddenly’ quickened with the quote ‘trains whistle’; the use of rhythm is used to express the physical journey.

The journey of migration in this text describes Journey into the unknown which then results in feelings of isolation, entrapment and depression.

My related text is a film named Titanic which was released in 1997 and directed by James Cameron. Titanic is the story of Rose