Off the Map by David Malouf

The poem ‘Off the Map’ by David Malouf presents the journey of truck drivers. They are travelling along country roads, during the night time and attempting to escape the barren landscape of the city. The imaginative landscape is clearly represented within this poem as the drivers are attempting to escape from their physical landscape. The persona perceives that the only form of escape from this is by consuming ‘pills’.

An inhabitant may rely on their imaginative landscape in a desire to escape from the barren physical landscape. This is clearly evident in the title of the poem ‘Off the Map’ as it connotes the desire of the inhabitants to escape the landscape that they currently know and to explore a landscape that is outside of the norm as it contains elements of mystery. However, it is this exploration for a new landscape that can lead to the destruction of inhabitants. This clearly links to the poem ‘Flames and Dangling Wire’ as both poems highlight how the journey towards a new landscape can cause inhabitants to become trapped within the landscape and loose their sense of identity.

The inhabitants struggle between the physical and imaginative landscape is clearly evident within society. The repeated motif of war is used throughout the poem to symbolise the struggle between the city and the country landscape. This is clearly portrayed in stanza eight, ‘ranges of our skull in low gear shifting skyward they climb towards dawn’. The use of the word ‘skull’ has connotations for destruction, danger and death, emphasising the war like relationships that exist between the landscapes. The ‘skull’ can be perceived as a metaphor for the country landscape which has become neglected by the inhabitants. The inhabitants own destruction of the landscape has encouraged them to confide in their own imaginative landscape as they seek an escape from the barren landscape surrounding them. Ultimately, the ‘climb’ embarked upon by the inhabitants can be a symbol of the struggles and journeys they have undertaken in order to reach a place of serenity and peace. This imaginative landscape provides hope and freedom for the inhabitants as emphasised through the connotations of ‘dawn’. It is through this that the imaginative landscape is explored by inhabitants and causes a struggle between this landscape and the physical landscape that surrounds them.

The ordinary lives of inhabitants can restrict the way in which they perceive the world. The composer’s utilisation of connotations and metaphors presents societies lack of time to be able to fully interact with the landscape. This is highlighted in the last stanza, ‘Nameless, not to be found by day on any map’. The use of the connotations of ‘nameless’ can be perceived as the inhabitants loss of connection with the landscape during the ‘day’ as the landscape they seek can not be found on any map, but rather is established within their own imagination. Therefore the escapement they seek is only revealed at night with the ‘dazzle’ of ‘headlamps’ and the voyage ‘into a dream’.

Freedom of an inhabitant from the physical landscape can be achieved through the inhabitant’s dependency on the imaginative landscape. The use of enjambment in stanza five, ‘They thunder across country like the daredevil boys of the ‘Fifties who flourished a pistol in banks’, creates a fast flowing rhythm and shows how it is easy to be able to drift away with your thoughts as there are a variety of ‘roads’ that can be taken by inhabitants. The inhabitants are able to feel free as they are able to escape to areas that are ‘Off the Map’ emphasising the endless possibilities of the imaginative landscape. This is furthered by stanza seven, ‘Now kids, barefooted, wade in the warm, hatched tyre-marks of country dust’. The use of imagery emphasises how the inhabitants desire to be like ‘kids’, who are ‘barefooted’. They desire to return to the innocence of their childhood, where their lives seem much simpler. By depending on their imaginative landscape the inhabitants are able to achieve the freedom which they desire.

The poem ‘Off the Map’ by David Malouf can be compared to the poem ‘Late Ferry’ by Robert Gray as both poems address the desire of the inhabitants to escape from the physical landscape by exploring their own imaginative landscape. The competition of environments is also addressed in both poems. In the poem ‘Off the Map’ the physical landscape of the country competes both with the city landscape and also the imaginative landscape of the inhabitants. This is similar to the poem ‘Late Ferry’ that represents the competition the inhabitants desire to move to the city landscape as they are drawn to it by the bright ‘lights’.