James Maloney’s novel A Bridge to Wiseman’s Cove is beautifully crafted and achingly honest exploration of the transformative power of love. Maloney uses language techniques, such as imagery, characterisation, symbolism, themes and figurative language. This entices the reader into, positions them to feel and think ways about the characters and is given to inform the reader about the character. In ABTWC Maloney has used unconditional love to express the characters inner thoughts. He uses this to meticulously craft abstruse themes and characterisations.
The Ways he has shown how transformative love is through points mentioned before and through the different forms of love (conditional and unconditional). I will present ways that Maloney formulates beautifully crafted language using exquisite conventions, achingly honest meanings and transformative love using figurative language, using conventions in his novel and themes; he does this through using Characterisation, Imagery, Names and Titles. Christian symbolism is something that will be articulate into this essay. Christianity is a real sign of how love can affect people and especially how Maloney uses it.
Unconditional love is something that is scarce in today’s society, any type of love is linked to an immaculate result (except Gods love . Love is something that many people take for granted but it provides many people with the safe and secure feeling. Maloney has used Christian symbolism to conceal a theme: the theme of unconditional love and the deeper meaning of the story. ABTWC resembles a mountain, the more obvious ideas are on the top and the deeper meaning like this is hidden underneath with its symbolism. This intricately gives the story more complicated ideas away from the obvious (dirty) meaning.
The chapter Good Friday is a prime example of the Christian symbolism. The obvious meaning could be Easter but concealed is the fact that they celebrate it and that God is watching or them because this chapter has remarkable amount of good things which link to the title Good Friday. The language convention that links this is symbolism, Christian symbols include- Fish, Jesus’ cross, Jesus’ Celebrations and bibles etc. ABTWC is considered to be a teenager’s book, but many of them would be oblivious to the fact, that Christianity may be something hidden under the pile of rubble Maloney has used to conceal it.
It reflects the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. This draws in with the theme of unconditional love/ transformative love. God has unwilling love for us he would go to the ends of the earth to help us and to be with us, nothing can get in his way. Joy shares this feeling of unconditional love with Harley, Carl, Maddie and Skip. A Mask something that conceals someone who doesn’t want to be found, they want to hid in there serene world behind something. The imagery in ABTWC provides building blocks to the characterisation of Carl. Animals can be described in two ways-wild and free.
Animals have all the freedom in the world; they don’t have a care for anything. This is parallel to the way many of the character act, animalistic. ‘Joy remarks, “Wasn’t it brilliant. It must be great to feel free again, like that. I almost know how the bird feels”’. (p. 193). Osprey, this book revolves around a singular animal resembling a main character, Carl. Birds Have freedom and that is one thing that Carl yearns for. Carl has spent his whole life trapped in a shell using imagery to express who he wants to be. He wants to spread his wings like the osprey and learn how to fly.
The osprey was once free and wild but has been in encased into a sad, flightless and alone animal. This is an animal version of Carl, he was youthful and a rejuvenated child until Sarah and Kerry left, then he became encased, stuck, trapped. He was expressed as an animal in imagery, the imagery of Carl portrays him as vulnerable and week, like a bird of prey, then towards the end of the novel, Carl begins to articulate a stronger front and uses imagery to show this. ‘This magnificent creature took to its wings’. The birds of prey imagery surrounding Carl links to one of the main themes of this novel, identity.
Maloney uses imagery to let the characters in this novel explore and find their identity. Hidden Meanings, something hidden to conceal the real achingly honest truth. The names and titles in ABTWC have sediment on top, but underneath they hold the truth, the astounding truth. This book is not seen as very inspirational but with the coherent devices used the names and titles link closer and hold a tighter grasp on the true meaning of what the book holds. ‘He’s not a wild creature, just a little boy’ (P. 115). Harleys name means “hare meadow; the long field”.
Harley is characterised through this novel just like this, something that is open, free and forever yearning. This describes Harley and his chapter. Without discovering the concealed meaning of the chapter titles have no relevance to the secluded information in the chapters. It is like buying someone clothes without knowing there sizes, you are not going to know how well it is going to work and you’re not going to know if it will be relative and useful. Without knowing the origin and the meaning of the names and title the book is just pages with some irrelevant information.
Maloney has used the name of the character to characterise them honestly and let their true colours shine. Skip refers to a ship or something that ravels on the sea. “Skip in the wheelhouse” (p. 78). This was Skip’s chapter. The first mention of him is on the Barge (another form of boat/ship) this refers directly to his name and his chapter all about water, ships and family helping to build his characterisation and showing how Maloney uses honesty to express and conduct an excellent novel, with marvellous themes that link directly to the honesty in the novel.
The theme of love is represented by the names and title because it shows what the true feelings of the character. Joys name means joy so she will be a happy and someone that has over for everyone whereas a character like skip doesn’t show much emotion and his name meaning doesn’t either. Love is something that can move you from a happy place to a sad desperate place or even the other way around. Maloney uses this to bring out the inner thoughts of Carl, Justine, Maddie, Skip and Joy.
Characterisation is a key factor in building up characters and showing the true essence of the persons mind and feelings. “It’s not the cake it’s Joy. She’s the only person who’s been good to him since we came here” (P. 132). This showing how the love from one can help build the character of many others. For example this will help build how people portray Harley, they will see him through different lenses, one lens made him seem troubled and dangerous, but with these new lenses that Joy has put on us she has characterised Harley as a vulnerable and innocent child.
There are thousands of lenses in this book because all of the characters have different views on the character. The characterisation has been formed by many of the themes in the novel (Belonging, Body Image and Family). The most obvious them that links to the characterisation is love, in many forms-Unconditional, Beneficial and Transformative-but as the characters grow their hearts grow and show how love can transform and make them all see each other in different lenses.
