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Wind In The Willows Map Analysis

Decent Essays

On page 30, we see the map that shows how limited the scope of her father's life was. The map is drawn with an internal circular frame that simulates the effect of a magnifying class, as if pulling the locations (which are likely truly separated by several miles) that much closer together. The text box overlaying this image, resting inside the scope of the magnifying glass, informs the reader that this impression of proximity is simultaneously misleading, and accurate. So far, we have only seen it as misleading. However, if we compare the image produced by this map to the very next panel, we see an image that zooms in even closer and demonstrates how reluctant his family is to stray from their small town. The impression we are left with is that their home life is somewhat suffocating, especially as …show more content…

By doing so, Bechdel has linked her father to Mr. Toad, whom she calls a “charming sociopath” (Bechdel 130). This link between Mr. Toad and Bruce Bechdel is significant in that Wind in the Willows map that follows because of the connection it renders. New meaning is found in the map as Alison draws parallels between the maps of both her home landscape and the setting of the children's novels. The image of Mr. Toad, perhaps still with the thought of Bruce linked to him, speeding towards the edge of the map in still life, also functions as a metaphor for her father's existence as he too became “disenchanted” (147). Three people were killed in a car crash on a highway that summer, the same highway her father would die on nine years later, and the impact of this event clearly has an influenced the way Alison processed the information. Mr. Toad, the boy around her age who died, and her father all become linked together in memory and association, as Alison processes their relationship to her father's

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