Invisible Cities Literary Elements

It is difficult to classify "Invisible Cities", as it does not follow the conventions of any genre. It features impressionistic and surrealistic elements embedded in a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. The author himself never classified it as a novel.

The conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan take place in the emperor's palace in a series of summer evenings.

Third-person omniscient narrator

During the course of the text, the mood gradually changes from poetic-romantic to pessimistic-infernal.

Marco Polo, traveler; Kublai Khan, the aging emperor of the Tartars and therefore the ruler of China

There is no conflict in a traditional sense; both characters meditate on cities and the state of humanity.

In the middle of the text, Marco Polo reveals that he has implicitly describing Venice. His hometown serves as the place of equilibrium, as the text gradually shifts from poetic places in the first half to decaying places in the second half.

The text starts with "Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions," which foreshadows the conversations and meditations that follow.

Kublai Khan's claim "I have neither desires nor fears" is an understatement because he does have the desire to know and understand his empire, and he fears it is decaying.

The emperor's atlas contains maps of lands that allude to other novels, e.g. the dystopian "Brave New World" or the utopian "The City of the Sun".

The descriptions of the cities is a series of impressionistic and sometimes surreal images. One example is Hypatia, a paradox image, as the function of the buildings is inverted. For instance, the palace, which connotes royalty and therefore leads Polo to the conclusion that the Sultan must be there, houses convicts as it is used as a prison. Another paradox image is the cemetery, which is supposed to be quiet--however, in Hypatia, it is full of music: "From grave to grave flute trills, harp chords answer one another."

At one point during their conversation, "Kublai Khan interrupted him or imagined
interrupting him, or Marco Polo imagined himself interrupted," which emphasizes the deep state of mediation of both characters. Their conversation has become transcendent.

The descriptions of the cities follow the same pattern or parallel structure, which Kublai Khan claims to have discovered and therefore tries to create a description of a city of his own.

The cities that Marco Polo describes, particularly the ones in the second half, represent modern cities and their problems. Their inhabitants, therefore, represent humanity as a whole. This is combined with criticism; for example, Leonia illustrates the consumerist attitude where things are thoughtlessly thrown away; Trude is a symbol of monotony; Procopia's main problem is overpopulation.

Beersheba is described as "a city which, only when it shits, is not miserly, calculating, greedy."