"You must look up, for a path will appear before you." Concerning writing, memory and symbol in Michael David O'Brien's novel Voyage to Alpha Centauri
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Abstract
This article presents the preliminary results of a research developed in order to present an investigation of the way in which the Canadian writer Michael David O’Brien made wide use, in the novel “Voyage to Alpha Centauri” (2013), of literary devices to convey theological ideas. For the analysis of the role of the diary’s writing - made by the character Neil Ruiz de Hoyos - the reflections presented by Blanchot (2005) about the main elements that are part of a diary were used. As memory is one of the fundamental components of writing a diary, Assman’s (2011) observations regarding the relationship between writing and memory will be used. As for the definition and use of the symbol in literary writing, the reflection developed by Frye (1973) will be applied. The relations between the Sacred Scriptures and their figures present in literary writing will be read from Frye (2004). Finally, the symbols and their theological and mystical implications will be analyzed according to the studies made by Chevalier & Gheerbrant (1993), Léon-Dufour (1970) and Morgain (2003). It was seen, therefore, that O’Brien’s writing in this novel makes extensive use of theological and mystical symbols to represent ideas that pursue Neil Ruiz de Hoyos.
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