Topoi

Much like the complete map, the topoi map begins as a journey, with the narrative moving directly from one concrete place to another. But, unlike the spatial variety of other journey narratives such as Pilgrim’s Progress, Utopia or Gawain, the topoi are limited. Once the narrative has jumped into and looped back from the imagined 'old time', it is clear that it was never supported by tangible reality or a world outside the poem. The narrator may make claims that his quest is complete, but the poem concludes open-endedly with a disembodied quote from King Lear: 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came'. The maps make explicit the embedded irony of the poem: the quest is all a guise.