Banking
Banking is introduced as imagery in Chapter Two through the idea of situating educational instruction as an act comparable to banking. “Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the banking concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits…In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing.” It is notable that the author chooses to create imagery linking banking and teaching in a very specific manner which naturally creates a negative image when the conceit of his metaphor offers an equitable opportunity for a more positive comparison. For instance, he could have retained the link between banking and education while presenting imagery to present the metaphor in which learning is a way to make an initial deposit potentially capable of earning revenue through the accumulation of interest over time. That the author institutes a correlation between bankers and teachers and customers and students rather than correlating the banking system and the education system themselves is indicative of a fundamental suspicion of human interaction rather than systemic efficiency.
The Borg Theory
One of the essential elements of successful oppression is the conquest of the underprivileged and powerless. The imagery in this example takes this idea well beyond the immediately obvious subdivision between oppressed and oppressor: “Every act of conquest implies a conqueror and someone or something which is conquered. The conqueror imposes his objectives on the vanquished and makes of them his possession. He imposes his own contours on the vanquished, who internalize this shape and become ambiguous beings `housing’ another. From the first, the act of conquest, which reduces persons to the status of things, is necrophilic.” Through the use of imagery, the author introduces the more revolutionary idea that over time the oppressed class becomes less distinctive from their conquerors and the division thus becomes less noticeable. The implicit message being forwarded in this theory is that given enough time, there will no longer even be this division as the oppressed class will be completely assimilated.
Liberation Pains
The process of liberation is analyzed extensively throughout much of the text, but it is singularly situated within striking imagery in one particular paragraph: “Liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The man or woman who emerges is a new person, viable only as the oppressor-oppressed contradiction is superseded by the humanization of all people. Or to put it another way, the solution of this contradiction is born in the labor which brings into the world this new being: no longer oppressor nor longer oppressed, but human in the process of achieving freedom.” The act of full liberation from oppression is presented metaphorically as a rebirth. Although speaking purely in political terms, the imagery will inevitably draw comparisons by some to the baptismal ritual of Christianity signifying being “born again.” Ultimately, political transformation and religious conversion are both about the same thing: the birthing of a new synthesis from the collision between thesis and antithesis.
Dialogue
Liberation from oppression is steeped in and utterly dependent upon dialogue. “To exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming…Hence, dialogue cannot occur between those who want to name the world and those who do not wish this naming—between those who deny others the right to speak their word and those whose right to speak has been denied them.” Dialogue in this sense of the word means specifically communication of ideas created within an atmosphere of contemplation and reflection. The imagery of this concept is highlighted by a section which distills dialogue into an essential quality of identifying something new as a means of self-identification. The imagery of a world separated into a binary opposition between those who seek identity and those wishing to obstruct this process of self-discovery is on very public display in the early decades of the 21st century.
