Analysis Of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas

Every single literary work is a portrayal of an author’s voice and personality, and thus the input by which the author wishes to convey his work usually defines it. A literary work can take the form of a novel, a short story, a play, a poem, and so forth, with a plethora of genres to follow. David Mitchell’s, Cloud Atlas, ‘more or less’ takes the form of a novel. However, Mitchell’s peculiar use of structure to present a tale that spans the lives of six different protagonists across the depths of space and time, grant the novel six different genres from historical fiction to comedy to post-apocalyptic dystopia. As quite eloquently put by Keily Oakes of the British Broadcasting Corporation: “Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is as ambitious as it is entertaining, reaching back through colonial times to a bleak distant future and back again.” [Oakes]

David Mitchell’s, Cloud Atlas, follows the lives of the six protagonists Adam Ewing, Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Sonmi~451, and Zachry Bailey living in different times. In presenting the lives of these characters the novel takes on a peculiar and every changing narrative style and structure. Each tale is communicated as if we are reading the original medium it was supposedly written in, where the tales takes on the structure of the written material. For instance the first chapter, Adam Ewing’s tale, ‘The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing’, is conveyed to us, the readers, in the form of an actual journal and strictly follows that structure throughout. Therefore I wanted to explore to what extent does the use of literary features such as symbolism, motifs, and narrative style accentuate the theme of reincarnation in Cloud Atlas?

Countless religions discus the idea of reincarna...

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...r has to cheat and lie his way through his new found career. Frobisher becomes more renegade, and eventually it leads to more lies and deception. He has multiple affairs with Ayres’ wife, cheating on his love Sixsmith, and Ayres’ alike. Frobisher composes a master piece, and decides that it is time to leave Ayres’. However, Ayres’ does not appreciate this and warns him that if he doesn’t stay that he will not allow him to become anything. Frobisher is fed up and escapes while not heeding Ayres’ warning. His actions begin to seem more dishonourable, and sinful with every step he takes. Until finally he ends his miserable life by shooting himself through the roof of his head. Unlike Ewing it seems that Frobisher’s actions had turned his life to a living hell. However, who can blame him. It’s not like he choose to be homosexual, then why should he be punished for that.