Fantastical Contrasts

 Chapter three of Invisible Cities shows a change in the type of cities portrayed. Prior to the Khan’s dream, the cities had been pretty much possible places with concrete observations. One could see that these comments from Marco Polo were said in a literal way but had a figurative and metaliteral meaning from the author’s point of view, but in this chapter, Marco Polo’s ideas are figurative themselves. The cities show unreal things with imagination. Each of the cities represents ideas that one could expect from a dream, as Calvino suggests.

Zobeide is a city built upon the dreams of people. These people, from many nationalities, united themselves, perhaps showing another common dream: unity. The city was a dream, but a disappointing one (U.N.?). Marco Polo and his companions felt it was a trap, and ugly disappointing city, showing perhaps how some dreams can be.

Hypatia also shows a somewhat unrealistic city, which shows how Marco Polo’s narratives are growing into ones that are more figurative. In this city, the contradicting signs disoriented people. Some signs suggested that something would happen, but what acutally happened was unrelated. Marco Polo was expecting to see women bathing themselves in a river because of what the environment suggested, but he ended up someone committing suicide. This “Cities and Signs” city suggests that signs or symbols are subjective. As a philosopher of Hypatia said, “Signs form a language, but not the one you know.” That shows how knowledge plays an important role in communication. I found interesting the name of the city, Hypatia, which resembles hypocrisy. Hypocrisy comes from the Latin word hupokrisis, which means “acting of a theatrical part.” Perhaps by choosing Hypathia as the name of the city, Calvino meant that language can be an act that we must decipher.

An interpretation of Armilla

The rest of the cities in chapter three all show subjective situation, where Marco Polo observes some unreal ideas. He no longer focuses on describing the physical aspects of cities but rather wishes to explain them. Armilla has nymphs as some of its inhabitants and is made of pipes that don’t really make houses or any organized structure. Nymphs and naiads usually live in fantastical and beautiful places, creating a contrast with the mess in Armilla. Chloe is a city where people connect a lot through their looks but are actually completely distant. People just look at each other for an instant as they walk. Valdrada, built on a shore where people could see the reflection of a city on the lake, shows how contrasting appearances can be from actual meanings. All these cities show how things have different meanings and ways to looking at them. How we communicate is subjective, our connections can be all fake and people can pretend to be things they’re not. This chapter, as it implied ideas through abstract cities, made the way the cities are describe shift to being more figurative.