Grabbing Hold, for Departure’s Sake How Max Vigne clings to home while he prepares himself to move on, in Andrea Barrett’s “Servants of the Map” (Andrea Barrett) By Patrick McEvoy-Halston April 2006 Max Vigne makes use of the ostensibly dangerous Himalayan mountain range as if it was a sort of Greenworld , that is, a sort of place which facilitates play, self-discover y and renewal. It’s an odd place to serve as a sort playgr ound, but he needed some place that woul d serve: it is clear that his life in England was safe, but routine, hum-drum. It is what was afforded him after a “shock”— the shock of his mother’s death—n ecessitated a life moved by necessity rather than by romance. Though he at first makes it seem as if his sur veying position abroad is really about bettering his position at home, not long into the text it becomes apparent that it is really about rediscovering a life of “charm” (22), a life he had been familiar with before his mother died. But this is not to say, however, that his initial way of characterizing the point of his travels inhibits sel f-discovery. Instead, very likel y, it enables such: for those who’ve experienced traumas such as the early loss of a parent can be overwhelmed by too much change. Because for them play is as much about the loss of the familiar and comforting as it is about the acquisition of the new and pleasing, play is a risky bus iness which must be under taken with care. Manytherapists argue that those who are traumat ized need to be first made to feel secure before they’ll engage with the world in an experimental, playful fashion, and Max may have prepared himself for a risky and playful re-evaluation ofwhat he wants to do with his life, by first having established himsel f as a respectab le, typical bourgeois Victorian , that is, by constitut ing himself as the sort of gentleman his own culture would “lift up” (and therefore support/buttress) as a good example for other young men to emulate. His journals entries delineate a sort of threat (and opportunity) the Kashmir environment might well confront him with: namely, becoming lost and freezing to death. And his first action in the text is his effort to mak e himself feel less vuln erable to such a threat. He does this by distinguis hing
