AP Essay 2006 B.

In many works of literature, a physical journey - the literal movement from one place to another - plays a central role. Choose a novel, play, or epic poem in which a physical journey is an important element and discuss how the journey adds to the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

 Path to Liberation

            In Muriel Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate, Barbara’s pilgrimage across Jordan while undercover, provoked her to search for the free and adventurous person buried inside of her. As it turns out, the danger wasn’t so substantial. So it is wondered why Barbara allowed herself to be placed in even more reckless territory other than, simply, “a lovely story to tell” (Spark 276).

            As Barbara makes the decision to give her pilgrimage some excitement, we see that it is not out of fear, but out of a desire to change her standard ways of life. When she first departs with Freddy, she’s surprised by the strange feeling “of going out with her hair straggling loose” (Spark 158). Barbara’s fear and paranoia make her feel liberated, excited at the idea of getting caught and given a sense of “triumph and justification” in the recognition of her unconventional side (Spark 160). At first Barbara is not aware of this fact, only confused by the sensation of “something unaccomplished in the silence” (Spark 159). But throughout her small journey escaping from the convent, and later the continuation of her pilgrimage as an Arab servant, she comes to realize the safe side is not what is truly inside her. Through her journey she is able to align the person she is with the person the rest of the world sees, aware that “her self-image was at variance with the image she presented” (Spark 36). Barbara’s physical journey becomes a quest to discover and unleash the person not “too cautious to live a life of normal danger” (Spark 36).

            Her freedom and self-expression also come from her gradual breakage of ties and bonding of new ones. Throughout Barbara’s journey, the definitive goal is to reach her fiancé Harry Clegg and drop the correspondence of an irritating and restricting friend. Through her gradual separation from her friend, Ricky, she felt “heavy with relief” (Spark 168), as she moved further and further from Ricky throughout her journey. This liberation allowed her to focus on her eventual marriage to the man who, despite other’s opinions, was the right one for the true, “scandal[ous]” (Spark 36) and uninhibited Barbara.

            As Barbara moves further through her adventure we continue to observe references to Barbara’s ulterior motives to going on her pilgrimage. When visiting the church, Barbara is enlightened by a comment that, “people put themselves out to visit places sacred to their religion . . . because that’s what people do” (Spark 210). Pilgrimage is simply something that’s done, not to lay eyes on a place that someone holy sat thousands of years ago, but to find oneself in the journey. It’s about deciding what you feel without being influenced “out here in this heat” (Spark 230).

                  Barbara realizes she’s made the choice to continue her pilgrimage for the adventure and the rebellion, noting that her decision was not from “determination to pray at the Christian shrines” (Spark 276). In an effort not to disappoint Freddy and to draw out the inner adventurist she’s been itching to prove, she sticks with her journey. To Barbara’s satisfaction, in the days following, she’s remembered to Freddy as “a jolly good sport” (Spark 276), not the dependent, quiet and one-dimensional person “set in her ways,” that she had always been perceived as (Spark 36). So whether her rebellion and journey were in hopes of reaching her self-realization, or simply “a lovely story to tell,” she became the free woman that was forever waiting to burst out.