Moving elephant, moving symbols Colonial discourses of translation in José Saramago’s A Viagem do Elefante

Abstract

This essay intends to study the way in which Saramago’s A Viagem do Elefante interacts with colonialist and postcolonialist discourses. Focusing on the evolution of the character Subhro throughout the novel, the first part concentrates on the ways of colonialist appropriation of the other caused by processes of renaming and reification. It then concentrates on the elephant’s symbolism, constantly reinterpreted in relation to power, especially on a religious level, as he crosses Europe and different systems of representations. The problem of representations is ultimately considered through the narrator’s position towards his own possibility of stating a discourse about a (colonial) world.