Sarah and I mapped Saramago’s The Tale of the Unknown Island. We were inspired by the Old World maps that depict the two sides of the world in two circles that overlap with one another (like the map above). Our goal was to map  from  the man’s perspective in one circle and the cleaning woman’s perspective in the other. In doing so, we hoped to capture the various dichotomies present in the story. In terms of the man’s relationship with the cleaning woman, we wanted to capture its “so close, yet so far away” nature. There is a tension between their unity and their separation, which Saramago communicates through his descriptions of port and starboard. The man laments that “the woman was asleep just a few yards away and he didn’t know how to reach her, yet it is so easy to go from port to starboard.” Thus, we hoped to highlight this tension through the structure of our map.

Another dichotomy we hoped to portray was light and dark. According to the man, “the sea is always dark.” Therefore, our map aimed to stay true to his vision. The cleaning woman seems to take the world in a literal way. When the sun is still out, the sea looks “jade” to her. She can only understand that it is dark once the sky has set and the sea has become “purple.” Therefore, our portrayal of light and dark in the woman’s map made a clear, half-and-half separation between light and dark. Through this light and dark separation, we hoped also to incorporate themes of gender. We asked ourselves where–in the light or the dark–the cleaning woman positions herself based on her identity as a woman.