The Motorcycle Diaries Literary Elements

Memoir

Latin America, 1951-1952

First-person

Tone: straightforward, forthright, earnest, introspective

Mood: adventurous, exhausting, wondrous, illuminating

Protagonist: Che. Antagonist: Anyone in a position of oppressive power.

There isn't really a major conflict, other than the question of whether the travelers' needs for food, shelter, and travel will be met.

There is not a traditional climax, but when La Poderosa dies and the journey shifts to being on foot, that signals a major change.

Guevara hears the sea warning him his time with Chichina is done, foreshadowing their estrangement.

N/A.

1. Otero Silvo: A Venezuelan writer, politician
2. Bedouin: nomadic desert Arab
3. Bacchanalian: referring to the Latin festival honoring Bacchus, god of drink and revelry
4. "A Thousand and One Nights": the famous Arabian book, here used to describe the blue sea of Iquique
5. Julius Caesar, emperor of Rome

See separate entry in this ClassicNote on imagery.

N/A.

N/A.

Synecdoche: "With nostrils flaring zealously for new horizons, they watched as their formidable empire grew" (103)

1. "Okay, but this is how the typewriter interpreted those fleeting impulses raising my fingers to the keys" (31)
2. "Yet afterwards I doubted the driftwood has the right to say, 'I win,' when the tide throws it on the beach it seeks" (36)
3. "The sea danced on the small stretch of beach, indifferent to its own eternal law" (37)
4. "The bike exhaled with boredom along the long accident-free road and we exhaled with fatigue" (40)
5. "It seemed that fingers of ice were gripping me all over my body, almost completely impeding my movement" (48)