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Expectation of Landscapes (High (leading to bathos) (Barbados (The…

- - - - 'The decline [of the weather] was gradual, like that of a person into old age'
        
        Simile likens the deterioration of the physical domain into a realm which is miserable in which to live
      - '[The glimpses of fair weather] were like false signs of recovery in a patient upon whom death has passed its sentence'
        
        Moribund imagery conveys the depressing and inevitability of distaste which is felt for one's surroundings, propelling them to seek reprieve in an alternative physical location.
      - 'Covered...by an ominous steely-grey sky'
        
        Prison diction suggests that Botton feels not only despair in his environment, but also a sense of imprisonment against which his will and liberty are pitted
      - 'The neighbourhood became a desolate spread of mud'
        
        The use of hyperbole accentuates Botton's negative appraisal of his circumstances, perhaps due to his inherent capacity for melodrama as well as his propensity to rely upon subjective judgements drawn from his heightened expectations of what conditions a landscape should sustain.
      - '[The scene in Hammersmith] was like one in a painting by Mantegna or Veronese'
        
        Allusion to Quattrocento painters, whose works focused upon necrotic subject matter, connotes death and decay.
      - 'I resolved to travel to the island of Barbados'
        
        The lineation as well as the high modality indicates the strength of Botton's intent to access the idyllic realm of Barbados communicated to him through the advertisements, which is additionally ironic due to the fact that he protested at length about the way in which he was susceptible to the influence of mediation.
    - - 'That appalling disease: the Horror of Home'
        
        The alliteration creates a sense of the Gothic here, communicating Baudelaire's dissatisfaction with the bourgeoisie mediocrity of his circumstances
      - 'Anywhere! Anywhere! So long as it is out of the world!'
        
        The repetition and exclamatory expressions here convey's the writer's desperation to alleviate his suffering in the current climate through travelling elsewhere, predicated upon a belief that another locale can ameliorate his negative situation.
- - - - connotes both purity and unadulteration, as if this landscape were a contemporary Eden, reinforced by the exposure of skin.
    - - creates a sense of utopia
    - - The alliteration accentuated the frivolity and freedom experienced by the individuals within this highly romanticised and mediated landscape
  - - - The oxymoron indicates the way in which we irrationally fantasisse about escaping the conditions in which we are placed
    - - The diction suggests that we are inherently vulnerable to manipulations and distortions of landscapes which we are not in tangible contact with, having the effect of raising our expectations to impractical levels.
    - - The utilisation of paradisiacal imagery emphasises the extent to which Botton had allowed unrealistic fantasies of this landscape to dominate his mindset. Moreover, the images are systematically organised via a tricolon to emphasise their apparent durability, which proves to be false.
    - - The metaphorical description of the mental landscape of Botton's which omitted all of the practical details and texture that was inevitably going to exist in the actual Barbados.
  - - - Worldview
        
        Through travel,
        
        Beliefs
      - Botton's experience of the motorway and the service station from London to Manchester
        
        '[The cars left] a uniform ribbon of red and white diamonds extending into infinity in two directions'
        
        The connotations of the terms 'ribbon' and 'diamonds' reconvey the typically mundane brake lights of the cars as delicate and precious, indicating Botton's psychological power to resist the power media has to render such landscapes as dull and worthless, and to esteem them in his own view.
        
        'there was poetry in this forsaken service station'
        
        The metaphorical association between the ostensibly functional landscape and the high literary form of poetry elevates the status of the mise-en-scene beyond that which is typically assumed.
      - Botton's experience of the landscape beside the Heathrow airport
        
        'Four engines suspended like earrings beneath implausibly long wings. In the light rain, clouds of water form a veil behind the plane on its matronly progress towards the airfield'
        
        The bridal imagery establishes a sort of glorified beauty not typically associated with a Boeing, which is not even a banal landscape, but a means of travelling between such landscapes. Thus, through a fortiori, Botton explains that if we can condition ourselves to remove excessive expectations, we can find true beauty in most situations, even the ones which are considered utterly uninspiring.
        
        The handheld amateur photograph of Heathrow airport contains a foreground of asphalt as well as a midground of powerlines, road barriers and fencing.
        
        The mise-en-scene here conveys the extent to which Botton can glorify otherwise mediocre landscapes.
        
        'Oil only: D50TFI-S4'
        
        The use of highly technical jargon which relates to the landscape of the airport expresses the way in which minutiae can be interesting.
      - Botton's experience of Amsterdam
        
        'The neighbourliness of a u and an i in Uitgang'
        
        The etymology and phonology of these letters proves fascinating for Botton, functioning as metaphors for the way in which the average aspects of a foreign landscape prove exotic simply by being different.
        
        'Why be seduced by something as small as a front door in another country? To condemn ourselves for these minute concerns [and interests] is to ignore how rich in meaning details may be'
        
        The use of hypophora by Botton enables him to answer his own rhetorical question which addresses the phenomenon by which we are enamoured by apparently mundane details in certain situations. He explains this occurrence through the opulent diction in 'rich in meaning', whereby he validates the quotidian in its own right, rather than requiring all things be exotic according to the typically held definition.
      - Gustave Flaubert's expectation towards Alexandria (and later Cairo) was in some ways matched to reality, allowing him to appreciate otherwise uncomfortable aspects of the landscape.
        
        'From the day he disembarked...Flaubert noticed and felt at home in the chaos'
        
        the irony here deliberately emphasises the expediency of having anticipations which are aptly suited to one's environment.
        
        'Gutteral intonations that sound like the cries of wild beasts and laughter, and flowing white robes, and ivory teeth flashing between thick lips and flat negro noses, and dusty feet and necklaces and bracelets.'
        
        The synecdoche here emphasises the vivid details in Alexandria which Flaubert felt were beautiful in and of themselves due to his keen and enthusiastic mindset and therefore his capacity for generous appraisal.
        
        'One of the finest things is the camel...I never tire of watching this strange beast that lurches like a donkey and sways its neck like a swan'
        
        The superlative of 'finest' and the simile comparing the camel to a swan are both highly ironic expressions which show the extent to which Flaubert's mentality departs radically from that of his contemporaries in his appreciation of details.
- - - - The rhetorical question invites the responder to consider the legitimacy of virtually experiencing landscapes, rather than tangibly, and the extent to which there is little difference between the two.
    - - The cumulative listing emphasises Esseintes' gloomy projections regarding his experience of London, which actually results in him abandoning all desire to experience a landscape in physical form
  - - - Transformation
        
        Wellbeing / Spiritual State
        
        Baudelaire believed that his travels even to Lisbon in Portugal would be futile, availing nothing in terms of his disposition
        
        'Life is a hospital in which every patient is obsessed with changing beds. This one wants to suffer in front of the radiator, this thinks he'd get better if he was by the window'
        
        The metaphorical comparison between travelling to novel locations and alternating hospital beds implies the inevitable realisation of one's mortality, which travel cannot enable one to permanently escape from
        
        Botton's grasp of the experience in Madrid, enabling existential fulfilment through the exercising of freedom.
        
        'My discoveries would have to enliven me: they would have in some way to prove enhancing'
        
        the lexical field emphasises the capacity of landscapes, when properly approached, to rejuvenate and enliven the participant
        
        Botton's experience of renewal through the Lake District as well as through the poetry of Wordsworth
        
        'Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,; / we will grieve not, rather find / Strength in what remains behind'
        
        Several techniques utilised by Wordsworth encompass the way in which he has been enlightened and restored by his surroundings. Initially, we must consider the elevated, religious jargon used to describe nature such as the term 'splendour', which connotes a restitution of the soul's vitality. Moreover, the inclusive language and exhortation language moves us to leave aside grief and pursue 'strength', which is spiritual terminology reminiscent of mystic christianity.
        
        'There's joy in the mountains, there's life in the fountains'
        
        The anaphora in this poetic extract conveys Wordsworth's ability to gain health from raw nature, accentuated by the euphonic assonance. Moreover, the present tense indicates that this potential for salubriousness is indefinite, and available to all travellers.
        
        'The poet proposed that Nature...was an indispensable corrective to the psychological damage inflicted by life in the city'
        
        The capitalisation of Nature implies that it possesses a godlike capacity to restore the human condition and to orient it correctly in terms of its priorities, in contrast with the chaos of urbanity. Moreover, the medicinal imagery suggests that nature can serve as an antidote to the effect of other metropolitan landscapes.
        
        'Smoke, congestion, poverty and ugliness of cities'
        
        The cumulative list conveys the destitution and subjugation of urban life, against which Wordsworth reacted by escaping to the Lake District as a form of protest against the dehumanisation entailed within the landscape of urban centres like London.
        
        'City dwellers had no perspective, he alleged: they were in thrall to what was spoken of in the street or at the dinner table. However well provided for, they had a relentless desire for new things, which they did not genuinely lack and upon which they did not depend. ..How men lived even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still strangers, not knowing each others' names'
        
        The accusation levelled at those who prefer urban landscapes is that they are limited, stymied in thought, which prevents them from developing fully as human beings, according to Wordsworth. This is compounded by the use of slave imagery in 'thrall', as well as the bestial image of 'relentless desire'. Moreover, there is a condemnation in the parallel syntax which outlines the absurd pursuit for things that were not needed or used. Finally, Wordsworth exposes the irony in that urban landscapes, in addition to creating false economies, destroy the civic harmony of communities due to the fact that they promote an individualistic and self-concerned mindset, crippling the human condition.
        
        View of Self
        
        Through travel, we gain a sense of the self being transcendent and empowered over our environment. This thesis is evident in Botton's brief descriptions of the experience of flight, as he encounters the stratospheric landscape over the Atlantic Ocean.
        
        'An immense horizon opens up which we can wander without impediment'
        
        The lackadaisacl associations with the verb 'wander', coupled with the hyperbole 'without impediment' establishes a sense of Godlike omnipresence which is instilled in the traveller as they access multiple landscapes. In other words, their self understanding is transformed in that they feel radically empowered.
        
        'Somewhere above an ocean we are flying past a vast white candy-floss island which would have made a perfect seat for an angel or even God Himself'
        
        The metaphorical diction suggests that we consume landscapes as if we think they are designed and in existence merely to satisfy our attendant needs. This notion is reinforced through the allusion to angels and God, who are equated to the self-empowered traveller who conceives of themselves as the master of the landscapes they interact with by virtue of physically inhabiting them.
        
        Flaubert's experience of Alexandria and Cairo
        
        'We are not simply spiritual creatures, but also pissing and shitting ones'
        
        Here the expletives convey the baseness which is inherent to our experience of landscapes in contradistinction to the romanticised ways in which we conceive ourselves as transcendent.
        
        Humboldt's categorisation and analysis of South America
        
        'he travelled 15,000 kilometres around the northern coastlines and interior and, on the way, collected 1,600 plants and identified 600 new species.'
        
        The use of numerical, statistical language here demonstrates the notion that Humboldt had transformed the state of human knowledge regarding this environment, based on the European colonial self-image of entitled conquerer, which was reinforced by the transversal of new frontiers. Moreover, the anaphora exemplifies the esoteric approach Humboldt had to comprehending his world, being a lone pioneer in the field of geology and botany.
        
        'What I was to do here, what I was to think'...Humboldt had not been pursued by such questions'
        
        The parallel syntax used by Botton here stipulates the extent to which he saw himself as a disempowered participant in a prefabricated travel experience, in contradistinction to Humboldt, who resists the influence of mediation and sought to deconstruct his landscapes in a subjective, yet empirical manner, resisting the 'pursuit' of the antagonistic influences of others.
      - Botton's experience of Barbados
        
        'Nothing was as I had imagined'
        
        The use of a superlative indicates just how inaccurate Botton's imaginings of this domain had been, which he was only able to verify upon arrival.
        
        'The profusion of images [based upon reality] made it strangely harder to see the Barbados I had come to find'
        
        The italicisation of the term 'see' exposes the irony of 'seeing' a landscape prior to corporeally experiencing it, which often leads to a disjunction between the preconceived idea and the scene which is ultimately encountered, as was the case with Botton.
        
        'I had had no thought of, and now protested inwardly at the appearance of, a luggage carousel with a frayed rubber mat, two flies dancing above an overflowing ashtray, a giant fan turning inside the arrivals hall, a white taxi with a fake leopard-skin-lined dashboard.'
        
        The cumulative listing here expounds upon the sequence of banal and highly disappointing realities which assaulted Botton upon experiencing Barbados in physical form, contradicting his previously overwrought expectations.
        
        'I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island'
        
        The use of self reflexive language conveys the way in which Botton feels a sensation of embodiment in a profound way when he actually engages with the tangible realities of a place.
        
        'New patterns of anxiety inevitably form on the horizon of consciousness, like the weather fronts that mass themselves every few days off the Western coast of Ireland'
        
        Metaphorical, ominous language is used by Botton to articulate the way in which anxieties plague a person, regardless of the otherwise idyllic circumstances in which they find themselves. Therefore, the perpetual vexation inherent to the human condition proves to be preclusive to fully enjoying one's landscape.
      - Botton's experience of Madrid
        
        'I awoke...to an intense lethargy , as though my veins had become silted up with fine sugar or sand'
        
        The simile here shows the inability of the physical body to sustain the pace and manner of travel demanded by beautiful environments.
        
        'On the Friday evening, I retired early to my room'
        
        The use of anticlimax here, stemming from the euphemism in 'retired' which elides the meaning of Botton's lacklustre retreat from an otherwise enticing environment, shows how despite the appeal of our surroundings, we nay nevertheless feel a sense of disinterest towards them, due to our human condition which contains both indifference and the occasional bout of uncontrollable misery.
        
        'In Madrid everything was known'
        
        The superlative here exposes the fact that there was no new information to uncover in Madrid due to the fact that all variables had been previously explored and all routes had been mandated by the pernicious influence of travel guides.