Comparing Guevara And Augustine's Confessions

An individual’s exhaustive journey towards an erratic and momentous epiphany, not only discloses one’s transformative spiritual destiny, but initiates a moral change in the values of society. This idea is abundantly evident in the autobiographical memoirs of Ernesto Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries, and in the climactic Book VIII of St Augustine’s Confessions. Guevara and Augustine struggle through a spiritual journey in their search for a fulfilling revelation. Their adventure towards this inexorable transformation is, firstly, ignited by physical catalysts, unlocking new avenues along the path to conversion. Moreover, the road that Guevara and Augustine traverse is seasoned with countless struggles that catalyse them towards this metamorphic

Guevara and Augustine encounter many erratic revelations throughout their exhaustive adventure. The vessel San Antonio, featuring in The Motorcycle Diaries “stowaways”, and the Egyptian Monk in Confessions Book VIII, invigorates a spiritual, emotional and political change within them. It is aboard this ship that Guevara, who “looking out over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections…”, begins to confront his new spiritual vocation. The composer metaphorically elucidates his awakening through a serene atmosphere and expansive imagery of the sea and sky. Alternatively, upon hearing the heartening conversions resonating from the miraculous life of St Antony, Augustine endures a confronting reflection on his interior deformities. With fresh eyes, he could now “see how sordid he was… tainted with ulcers and sores”. The composer’s explicit diction and honest tone reveal his sorrowful response to his mundane shortcomings. Through the vessel of St Anthony, both Guevara and Augustine’s spiritual and political mind-sets are renewed, setting them along the path to enlightenment. However, a journey that will undoubtedly be masked with suffering and

The anguish and sacrifice of earthly loves, in Guevara and Augustine’s odyssey, lead them towards a renewing transformation. Guevara’s surrendering of Chichina pulls him up from a “haven of indecision” into a liberated childish realm as the “starry sky twinkled happily above him”. More importantly, this care-free boyish image, manifested through simple wonder-struck diction, reveals Guevara’s freed and elevated state of being. Likewise, it is only through the metaphorical “war” within Augustine’s mind that the fulfilling truth can enter his heart. Augustine’s inner struggle, between his desire for conversion and his earthly defects is as though the “impulses of nature and the impulses of the spirit are at war”. The abstract language and poetic prose illuminate this internal battle. Additionally, Guevara’s empathetic witness to the suffering of others affirms a clearer path to spiritual revelation. This is plainly evident in diary entry “la Giaconda’s smile” where the doctor’s meeting with an asthmatic woman aggravates him into a compassionate, yet helpless, emotional state. The composer’s ambitious, yet impotent diction as he “desires a change… in complete powerlessness… to prevent the injustice of a system…”, manifests Guevara’s political criticism of society. This new political view of amendment is a fundamental vector for Guevara’s ultimate