1492: Or, Traveling Metaphors In The Discovery Of America Essay
840 Words4 Pages
The article is 1492: Europe in America and America in Europe: Or, Traveling Metaphors in the Discovery of America by Boris Vejdovsky. This was a very interesting article concerning Columbus and the beginning of our great country. Vejdovsky dives into the reasoning behind Columbus’s exploration of the New World and really tackles the deeper meaning behind why Columbus choose to do what he did. The main argument of this article was whether Columbus choose to adventure and explore out of selfish wants or out of biblical calling. The author presents the two specific choices for describing Columbus, either a faithful zealot or greedy tourist only interested in fame, fortune and acceptance. He describes Columbus two hypothetical ways for the ready…show more content… He negatively describes the adventurer theory by implying that Columbus would have been extremely close-minded and materialistic specifically towards the Native Americans and the riches of the New World. The author describes Columbus’s treatment of them as, “HE worshipped the Holy Trinity and dreamed of a Jerusalem crusade, but despite his piousness “his attitude to the Indians was religious without being humane.” (Armesto 1996: 16, 138) I also argue that considering Vejdovsky is so against the selfish aspects of Columbus’s supposed materialistic goals, why then he thinks the treatment of the Indians He ends the paper with this quote, “In that, he may be the first American tragic hero facing an American destiny he does not completely comprehend, a hero who can never put an end to the wandering to which America condemns those who try to possess her.” I interpret Vejdovsky calling Columbus a ‘tragic hero’ the same as siding with the viewpoint of Columbus as a zealot. In response to this key interpretation, I have to disagree with the