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MOVING IMAGES:VISUAL METAPHORS OF PEACE IN
THE MOVIE MANGO DREAMS
by Stephan Engelkamp, Kristina Roepstorff and
Alexander Spencer
Visual metaphors stand at the border between text and image, as they are lin-
guistic figures that visualize the spoken. Based on this assumption and on the
existing knowledge on the discourse analytical method of metaphor analysis,
Part One of the article develops a method of visual metaphor analysis
(VMA). Part Two uses this method to examine the metaphors of peace found
in the acclaimed movie Mango Dreams, the winner of the Peace on Earth
Film Festival 2017. The film by John Upchurch tells a story of Dr. Amit
Singh, whose family was killed by Muslims during the partition of India and
who is suffering from the onset of dementia. In order to confront his fading
memories and in pursuit of peace, he commences on a journey to his child-
hood home in what today is Pakistan. On his travel, he is aided by Muslim
rickshaw driver Salim, whose wife was raped and murdered by Hindus. Dur-
ing the long journey across India in a rickshaw, the two form a close friend-
ship and help each other find the peace they have been searching for. Based
on our visual metaphor analysis (VMA) of the film, as well as an interview
with the director, the article demonstrates how metaphors are employed to
visualize a positive concept of peace, particularly HOME, JOURNEY, and
BRIDGE, which has a specific temporal, spatial, and moral dimension. In
contrast to much of the international relations research on visualization of
peace and conflict, the conceptualizations of peace in Mango Dreams
metaphorically envision positive peace, instead of the more familiar concep-
tualization of negative peace, through a representation of PEACE not only in
terms of a place (HOME) or process (JOURNEY) but as practice (BRIDGE).
INTRODUCTION
Metaphors have always played an important role in the depiction of
peace. Classic examples include images of the dove or the olive
PEACE & CHANGE, Vol. 45, No. 1, January 2020
©2019 Peace History Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
126
branch. While research on the visualization of peace has gathered
some momentum,
1
the role of metaphors in this visualization process
remains under researched. We argue that as linguistic figures, meta-
phors visualize text. They occupy the space between text and visual
representations. While metaphor analysis has become one of the most
frequently used text-based discourse analytical methods in Interna-
tional Relations (IR),
2
little attention has been given to the potential
of using metaphor analysis to study visual material such as films.
Drawing upon insights from cognitive linguistics, this article intro-
duces visual metaphor analysis (VMA) to examine a process of double
visualization in film. On the first level, this includes the visualization
of phenomena in the film itself, the pictures we see on screen. This
can be likened to the metaphorical expressions used in literature. On
the second level, this double visualization also includes the visualiza-
tion of the underlying metaphorical theme itself. Such conceptual
metaphors are not necessarily explicit but are essential to understand
the narrative unfolded in the film.
In order to illustrate a method of visual metaphor analysis
(VMA), this article examines metaphors of peace in the independent
feature film Mango Dreams, which narrates a story of overcoming
painful memories of separation and suffering in the wake of the parti-
tion between India and Pakistan. The aim of the article is to show
that, in contrast to much of the literature on the visualization of
peace,
3
it is possible to visually represent positive peace. As discussed
in the introduction to this special issue, peace can be and has been
conceptualized in many different ways. A key differentiation in the
scholarly debate on the conceptualization of peace is the distinction
between negative and positive peace, first introduced by Johan Gal-
tung. Whereby negative peace refers to the absence of direct violence
and war, positive peace manifests in the absence of structural and cul-
tural violence. Reconciliation between the conflict parties and the soci-
ety at large is considered a key element for moving from negative to
positive peace.
4
While the film focuses on the conflict between India
and Pakistan, the article aims to use the film as an illustrative example
of the metaphorical visualization of peace in general and positive
peace in particular.
In pursuit of this aim, the article is structured as follows: Part
One articulates the method of VMA combining insights from cognitive
linguistics and film studies. Part Two applies the method to the film
Mango Dreams by drawing out three fundamental metaphors of
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 127
peace, which constitute the phenomenon conceptually as HOME,
JOURNEY, and BRIDGE. The analysis shows that, in contrast to
much of the negative peace-focused research on the visualization of
peace, a positive visualization of peace is possible through an engage-
ment with visual metaphors. Moreover, our interpretation demon-
strates how this more holistic understanding of positive peace is
predicated on an interdependent and mutually constitutive configura-
tion of time, space, and morality.
Visual Metaphor Analysis as Method
Metaphor analysis as a discourse analytical method is well estab-
lished in International Relations (IR), and a number of scholars have
applied it to aspects of international politics such as European integra-
tion,
5
immigration,
6
or foreign and security policy.
7
As Petr Drul
ak
claims, the “analysis of metaphors has greatly enriched our under-
standing of international relations.”
8
Metaphors are here considered a
transference, naming one thing in terms of another.
9
Thus, Susan Son-
tag describes metaphors as “saying a thing is or is like something-it-is
not,”
10
while Paul Ricoeur argues that “metaphor holds together
within one simple meaning two different missing parts of different
contexts of this meaning.”
11
Jonathan Charteris-Black defined meta-
phor as a “linguistic representation that results from the shift in the
use of a word or phrase from the context or domain in which it is
expected to occur to another context or domain where it is not
expected to occur, thereby causing semantic tension.”
12
In line with arguments made in cognitive linguistics, this article
argues that metaphors do not simply substitute one term for another
but create a strong perceptual link between two things.
13
Scholars such
as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson point out that a metaphor is not
simply a “superficial stylistic accessory” but the conceptual system that
structures the way people think.
14
Murray Edelman furthers this obser-
vation in his definition of metaphors as “devices for simplifying and
giving meaning to complex and bewildering sets of observations that
evoke concern.”
15
Through metaphors, humans understand one con-
ceptual domain of experience in terms of another by projecting knowl-
edge about the first familiar domain onto the second more abstract or
complex domain. The central idea here is that metaphors map a source
domain, for example, PLANT, onto a target domain, for example,
PEACE, and thereby make the target domain appear in a new light.
128 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
Metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson argue, always refers to a metaphorical
concept.
16
This idea is commonly captured in the following way:
TARGET DOMAIN (A) IS SOURCE DOMAIN (B)
PEACE (A) IS PLANT (B)
Literature distinguishes between two kinds of metaphors: the
metaphorical expression and the conceptual metaphor. The conceptual
metaphor involves the abstract connection between one “conceptual
domain” to another by mapping a source domain (PLANT) and a tar-
get domain (PEACE).
17
Mapping here refers to “a set of systematic
correspondences between the source and the target in the sense that
constituent conceptual elements of B correspond to constituent ele-
ments of A.”
18
Conceptual metaphors do not have to be explicitly vis-
ible in discourse. However, metaphorical expressions are directly
visible and represent the specific statements found in the text which
the conceptual metaphor draws on. For example:
The seed for peace was sown by grass roots activists.
Peace had to be cultivated by both sides.
The metaphors seed of peace and cultivated are two different
metaphorical expressions which both draw on the same conceptual
metaphor: PEACE IS PLANT. Though this is not a universal or even
“the correct” way to conceptualize peace, it makes sense in a specific
discursive and cultural context. The conceptual metaphor PEACE IS
PLANT relies on metaphorical subcategories such as SEED,
GROWTH, and ROOTS, which link different metaphorical expres-
sions in language to a coherent conceptual system. The system signifies
a specific meaning of peace: It is thought of as being natural, organic,
but can also be cultivated, can be fragile and have needs, can sustain
life but can also die.
The mapping between the two domains is only ever partial, as not
all characteristics of concept A are transferred to concept B. Meta-
phors draw attention to certain aspects of a phenomenon and invite
the viewer, listener, or reader to think of one thing in the light of
another. Metaphors “limit what we notice, highlight what we do see,
and provide part of the inferential structure that we reason with.”
19
Such conceptual acts of metaphorical reading and determination do
not follow rigid or necessary rules. They emerge from embodied
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 129
experiences in language and practice and are, therefore, fluid and
open-ended.
20
This ultimately means that the reading of metaphors is
a subjective endeavor, one based on the reader/listener’s cultural
embeddedness. As Paul Chilton and George Lakoff point out, meta-
phors “are concepts that can be and often are acted upon. As such,
they define in significant part, what one takes as ‘reality’, and thus
form the basis and the justification for the formulation of policy and
its potential execution.”
21
Metaphors structure the way people define
a phenomenon and thereby influence how they react to it: They limit
and bias our perceived policy choices as they determine basic assump-
tions and attitudes.
22
While the first scholars interested in metaphors predominantly
focused on text, the analysis of metaphors has moved into the visual
realm. In metaphor studies, the analysis of visual or pictorial meta-
phors in the areas of film,
23
advertising,
24
or cartoons
25
has become
well established. This does not mean that there is agreement on what
constitutes a visual metaphor. Some authors such as No€
el Carroll
argue that we can only speak of visual metaphors in instances when
“physically noncompossible elements co-habitate a homospatially uni-
fied figure which, in turn, encourages viewers to explore mappings
between the relevant constituent elements and/or the categories or
concepts to which the constituent elements allude.”
26
This means that
both the source and the target domain must be visible in the same
agent/object/event at the same time in a way that does not occur in
the real world. For example, a soldier (target) is shown with a face of
a wolf (source). Furthermore, Carroll holds that the creation of the
metaphor must be intentional, and the viewer has to be aware of this
intention.
27
In contrast, Charles Forceville considers visual metaphors, or what
he refers to as pictorial metaphors, as an image in which an expected
visual element is replaced with another unexpected one, creating
something unconventional.
28
For something to qualify as a pictorial
metaphor, one should be able to answer three questions: (1) What are
its two domains? (2) What is the target domain, and what its source
domain? (3) Which features can or must be mapped from source (e.g.,
wolf) to target (e.g., soldier)?
29
Others, such as John Kennedy, Christopher Greene, and John Ver-
vaeke, point out that visual images outside such formal criteria can be
considered a metaphor “provided that its use is intended to occasion a
metaphoric thought.”
30
We extend this definition and propose that, in
130 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
contrast to text-based metaphors, visual metaphor lies fully in the
metaphorical eye of the beholder. The essential element of a metaphor
is that it makes us understand one concept (target) with the help of
another (source) and thereby influences our understanding of the tar-
get. The creator’s intentions for the (metaphoric) image are irrelevant
if the process of transference is plausible and serves the purpose of
constructing meaning. The analysist makes sense of the metaphor
through her reading of an image as metaphor.
We consider a process of double visualization as essential for a
visual metaphor. This involves the explicit visualization of what Lak-
off and Johnson refer to as metaphorical expression in the film (i.e.,
the images on the screen), as well as the (often implicit) visualization
of the conceptual metaphor in the interpretation of the viewer (i.e.,
the images in the head).
31
In other words, double visualization
involves the visualization on screen and the visualization in the meta-
phor, for example, the main character walking arm in arm with his
long-lost brother to Pakistan (metaphorical expression on screen) and
the underlying conceptual metaphor PEACE IS HOME. This process
is an inherently subjectively emotional one, as the metaphor of HOME
will not be universally considered as an appropriate source domain for
the target domain PEACE (as with those from a metaphorically bro-
ken home). Furthermore, these metaphors are culturally embedded
and metaphors do not necessarily translate well from one cultural con-
text to the next. Nevertheless, we believe that the metaphors are at
least intersubjective, as many cultures positively attribute the home to
the idea of peace, including a feeling of well-being, safety, and love.
To illustrate how the process of double visualization works in the
visualization of peace, the following sections apply the conceptual dis-
tinction between metaphorical expression and conceptual metaphor to
the visual realm. Using the film Mango Dreams, the article focuses on
three conceptual metaphors, HOME, JOURNEY, and BRIDGE, as
expressions of the target domain PEACE. In the subsequent analysis of
the film, we show that PEACE is not only conceptualized in terms of
aplace (HOME) or process (JOURNEY) but also as practice
(BRIDGE).
Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams
This section will first contextualize the conflict that is presented in
Mango Dreams and summarize its main plot before we analyze the
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 131
three main conceptual metaphors. We decided to focus on the Film
Mango Dreams as an example of peace cinema because it deals with
one of the longest-running conflicts in the world: the conflict between
India and Pakistan, which recently re-escalated in February 2019.
32
Since the partition of the Indian subcontinent, the two countries—
which are now both nuclear powers—have fought several wars, with
Kashmir becoming a flashpoint between them. While there are many
films dealing with this legacy of partition and related intercommunal
violence in India, Mango Dreams stands out as a film that focuses on
reconciliation through the deconstruction of the enemy image
33
and,
as will be argued, a vision of positive peace. As such, it has gained
international recognition. It has won several awards
34
including best
narrative feature film at the Peace on Earth Festival in 2017 and the
Special Jury Award for Bridging Cultures at the 2016 Arizona Interna-
tional Film Festival. We read the success of the film at these festivals
as an intersubjective acceptance of the film’s main message and its
visual metaphors, making it a subject worthy of investigation for those
interested in analyzing the visualization of peace. Beyond the peace
film festivals, the movie is now also available on Amazon (US) for rent
or purchase and was released on Netflix in the United States, UK, and
India in March 2018.
35
The film therefore has the potential of reach-
ing a wide, global audience.
Partition, Intercommunal Violence, and the Quest for Peace
In August 2017, India and Pakistan both celebrated the 70th
anniversary of independence from British colonial rule. The celebrations
were a display of national pride and identity. What was notably lacking
was a commemoration of the lost lives and the suffering that accompa-
nied independence. As Anandita Bajpaj and Maria Framke note:
The date simultaneously marked the 70th anniversary of the gory,
violent and tragic experiences of Partition. Notably, the episodes
and events of Partition failed to find any mention in the addresses
of either Shahid Khaqan Abbasi or Narendra Damodar Modi, the
political heads of the two states. No official obituaries for those
who were killed in the (religious) riots or the innumerable women
who were raped and abducted, nor any moments of silence for
the strife of those who were displaced and have led partitioned
lives.
36
132 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
The legacies of the bloody and violent events that accompanied
partition (and independence) have shaped individual lives, intercom-
munal relations, and politics in the subcontinent. The drawing of new
political boundaries and the creation of two independent states
resulted in widespread intercommunal violence, mass displacement,
and a high number of casualties.
37
It is estimated that twelve million
people were displaced in the northern (and to be divided) region of
Punjab, and up to 20 million in the entire subcontinent. About one
million people were killed in the events of 1947.
38
These bloody
events, the resulting trauma and lasting impacts on divided and
uprooted families, are present to this date in national narratives, per-
sonal life stories, and regional politics.
Since the 1947 partition of British India into the two states of
India and Pakistan, the two countries have fought a series of wars.
39
The threat of military confrontation between the two nuclear powers
remains high and poses serious risks to international and regional
security. At the heart of the conflict lie two legacies of the Partition:
the unresolved Kashmir issue
40
and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
over then-East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). At a national level, recur-
rent episodes of intercommunal/interreligious violence and riots
41
and
the rise of Hindu Nationalism and Hindutva in India
42
are only to be
understood within the historical context of independence and the cre-
ation of the two nation states. The Gujarat riots in 2002, in which up
to two thousand people were killed and 150,000 displaced in the state
of Gujarat and its capital Ahmedabad, were some of the most brutal
episodes of intercommunal violence in postindependence India. The
traumatic episode of Partition is largely silenced
43
by official narratives
and overshadowed by nationalistic discourses and “a cyclical, ritual-
ized remembrance of the nationalist movement(s) for independence
from colonial rule.”
44
Yet, remembrance and acknowledgment of the
lived experiences of partition and its impacts on peoples’ lives are rein-
stalled into collective memory through oral history, popular culture,
and civil society initiatives.
45
Novels, comics, art, and film are some of the devices through
which the traumatic history is narrated in new ways, but cinema is a
particularly influential form of popular cultural production for people
in India and Pakistan.
46
Studies of cinema in India are vast and the
influence of Indian cinema on the construction of national identity has
been well-researched.
47
Narrating stories of partition and the displace-
ment, suffering and loss of lives it caused, cinema “undertakes the
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 133
representation of trauma and task of mourning in ways distinct from,
say, literature, oral history, or truth commission testimonials.”
48
Many popular films have thematized Partition, among them Garm
Hava (1973), Tamas (1988), Earth (1998), Train to Pakistan (1998),
and Partition (2007).
49
In these films, the metaphor of motion, a yatra
(journey)
50
and the border created through the Partition, “becomes
the geographical inscription of the meaning and impact of history
upon identity,” both collectively and individually.
51
In our reading,
these accounts of partition provide a narrative of violence, suffering,
and loss.
The film Mango Dreams (2016) by American director John
Upchurch is a story of overcoming trauma, forgiveness, and reconcilia-
tion. In his first feature film, Upchurch tells a story of intercommunal/
interreligious violence, territorial division, and the search for peace.
Though an English-speaking American film, it targets Indian and Pak-
istani audiences.
52
The film was well received in India but reached less
people in the United States and was not screened in Pakistan. Film fes-
tivals remain the main distribution channels as the censor board of
India has not yet reviewed the film and it has not been picked up for
distribution.
53
However, as stated earlier, the film has been released
on the online-streaming platforms Amazon and Netflix in the United
States, UK, and India, potentially reaching a wider audience.
Mango Dreams was created to foster religious tolerance, over-
come religious and territorial divides, and spread a message of forgive-
ness and peace.
54
The film addresses two bloody events in Indian
history and their devastating effects on individual lives and intercom-
munal relations: the violence and uprooting that accompanied Parti-
tion and the 2002 Gujarat riots. Though partition is the dominant
point of reference in the film, the chosen locality of Ahmedabad, the
capital of the State of Gujarat, is an implicit reference to the riots.
The two events are embodied in the two main characters and their life
stories that unfold throughout the film.
The two protagonists, Dr. Amit Singh (Ram Gopal Bajaj) and
Salim (Pankaj Tripathi), embark on a journey that will lead them to
reconcile with the traumatic events of their past. Amit Singh is a Sikh
who was displaced as a child from now-Pakistan to India during the
partition. The film retells the story of his personal experience of Parti-
tion as a child. Because his family is murdered by Muslims in the
intercommunal violence, his life is presented as always being on the
run. After a dementia diagnosis and realization that he will eventually
134 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
lose his memory, Amit decides to return to his childhood home, which
is “elsewhere,”
55
to make peace with his past. His son Abhi (Samir
Kochhar), a nonresident Indian living in the United States who has not
experienced partition himself, shows little understanding and commits
his father to a retirement home. Amit runs away and embarks on a
journey to his past. In Ahmedabad, he encounters Salim, the other
main character, a Muslim auto rickshaw driver. Salim himself has a
traumatic history: His wife was raped and burned by Hindus during
the 2002 Gujarat riots. After Amit, a doctor, saves Salim’s son’s life,
Salim agrees to drive Amit “anywhere”—without knowing the pur-
pose of the journey. Amit says he wants to be taken “home,” which
will (to Salim’s surprise) eventually lead them both to the Indian–Pak-
istan border. During their journey, they forge a friendship, help each
other come to terms with their troubled past and eventually find
peace.
It is important to stress that the film does not only involve depic-
tions of positive peace but also includes images of violence, conflict,
and their aftermath (negative peace), for example, the newsreel-like
visuals of violence during the partition of India and Pakistan (Mango
Dreams 0:03:20) or Amit’s memory of his dead blood-soaked family
members (Mango Dreams 1:06:54). The focus in the following three
sections will be on visual metaphors of positive peace and the concep-
tual metaphors HOME, JOURNEY, and BRIDGE. We do not claim
the superiority of one metaphor over another, but merely their parallel
existence.
PEACE IS HOME
The opening sequence of Mango Dreams establishes HOME as a
conceptual metaphor for something that has been lost and as the
desired destination of the protagonists’ journey. The film starts with
Amit Singh walking through paddy fields before the scene merges into
a cutback to Amit’s childhood (metaphorical expressions). Young
Amit (Parminder Singh) tricks his brother Abhay (Sukirat Singh) into
handing him his toy, a spinning top. After an argument over a mango,
the boys separate and—being caught up in the events of the Partition
—will not see each other again for decades. The image merges to
quick cuts of news clips about independence and partition. Images of
refugees and violence flash on the screen, indicating something terrible
has happened to Amit’s family. These sequences are voiced over with
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 135
dramatic music and Amit’s calls for his brother. The scene then cuts
to the grown-up Amit running and calling desperately. The metaphori-
cal expressions of the lost HOME and its further expression in the
separated family provide a strong visualization of the loss of PEACE.
Later in the film, the conceptual metaphor of HOME re-appears,
again in opposition to a family rift. Sixty-five years later, Amit is a
successful medical doctor who realizes he may be suffering from
dementia. His wife died some time ago from a disease he could not
cure. Abhi, Amit’s adult son, surprises his father with a visit to Amit’s
home in Ahmedabad. Abhi knows about his father’s progressing dis-
ease and proposes to take him into a care facility until he can arrange
to bring Amit to the United States to live with him and his American
wife (Audrey Wagner). Amit rejects his son’s offer, as he does not
want to be put in “a prison” (an antithetical metaphorical expression
of home) (Mango Dreams 0:21:07). Ironically, the viewer watches the
conversation through the barred window of Amit’s house, giving the
visual impression that he has been living in prison all along and not
his real home.
The film represents HOME as a space which is intimately con-
nected to the family, yet a site of struggle, expressed metaphorically in
the family rifts both past and present. His HOME in Ahmedabad is
metaphorically represented as a prison, indicating that the persisting
family rift renders the PEACE at HOME incomplete at best, as nega-
tive PEACE, characterized by an absence of violence but not as peace-
ful in a stronger, more positive sense. At the same time, HOME is a
destination, where Amit hopes to find peace again. Amit’s journey is
thus connected to HOME in a double sense: He needs to leave
Ahmedabad, in fact, run away from his own son/family, in order to
return to his birth place, a place of origin, where Amit hopes to
reunite with his brother/family and re-connect with his “roots”
(metaphorical expression), where “my parents –my forefathers –
ploughed” (Mango Dreams: 1:16:50). At the same time, it is the place
where he will encounter his earliest and most painful memories, where
his family was killed in intercommunal riots.
In our reading, Mango Dreams represents the target domain,
PEACE, through a spatial metaphor, HOME, as a geographical place.
At the beginning of the film, we do not know where this place is
located. Until the end of the story, all the plot reveals is that HOME
is meaningful through its social relations: the protagonist’s connection
to his family, as indicated by the metaphorical expression of hugging
136 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
his brother (Mango Dreams 1:22:55). It is the place where Amit grew
up until he lost his loved ones. This conceptual metaphor is thwarted
by images of historical media reports about independence and parti-
tion. In these cuts, we find clear geographical references and names of
cities, borders and places of struggle and violence. We see people wav-
ing flags and political maps constituting the boundary between India
and Pakistan. During their journey, both Amit and Salim realize that
HOME is everywhere. For example, when Salim explains that his
mosque has been destroyed by Hindus, he now simply unrolls his
prayer rug on the street. His mosque is now everywhere. The theme
“HOME is everywhere” runs throughout the film, reinforced through
the vocals of the film’s soundtrack. The conceptual metaphor HOME
marks the beginning and the endpoint of Amit and Salim’s JOUR-
NEY, the second conceptual metaphor of PEACE in Mango Dreams.
PEACE AS JOURNEY
Mango Dreams focuses on the main characters and the relation-
ship between the two by using the conceptual metaphor JOURNEY,
which works on different levels. It is a journey that is motivated by a
sense of belonging to a HOME that is “elsewhere” and that trans-
gresses modern state borders. As Bajpai and Framke note, “partition-
ing the territories has not completely curtailed them from speaking
about a past that used to be ‘elsewhere’. Thus, memory itself cannot
be territorially quarantined, given it spills over states’ boundaries both
spatially and temporally.”
56
On another level, the journey is a com-
mon trope in feature films to represent (self)discovery or a quest,
whereby the “end of the journey can be a physical, spiritual or psy-
chological destination or may involve aspects of all three.”
57
The film
thus follows the road movie genre with its narrative structure of “an
episodic journey through which characters can be involved in the pro-
cess of self-discovery or learning about each other and/or themselves
along the way.”
58
The protagonists’ road trip from Amit’s home in
India to his ancestral village in Pakistan features comical elements,
which result from Amit initially not telling his driver Salim that they
are embarking on a trip that will take them throughout India. Here
the film is full of metaphorical expressions which show both the char-
acters on the move in the rickshaw (Mango Dreams 0:40:24) or on
the road to their destination (Mango Dreams 1:03:45). More impor-
tantly, however, is the form of this journey, which resembles a ritual
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 137
in which both Amit and Salim will confront the memories of their
troubled pasts. At the end of their spiritual journey, the protagonists
will find peace in reconciling themselves with their feelings of hate
and guilt.
The JOURNEY is part of the CONDUIT metaphor, in which a
“speaker puts ideas (objects) into words (containers) and sends them
(along a conduit) to a hearer who takes the idea/obects out of the
word/containers.”
59
One striking feature of the journey represented in
Mango Dreams is its temporal dimension, shown through decelera-
tion. Amit refuses to take a bus or a train; instead, he and Salim
embark on their trip through India in the auto rickshaw. Throughout
the film, one encounters metaphorical expressions which visualize
JOURNEY as slow and exhausting, as Amit will refuse to take faster
or more convenient means of transportation (Mango Dreams 0:39:15)
which would shorten the journey and make achieving peace an easier
endeavor. To the contrary, the motive of slowing down becomes even
more important, as the traveling party eventually walks the final part
of their trip. The visual representation of the JOURNEY as slow,
exhausting and burdensome contrasts with the progression of the
social relationship between the main characters, who gradually
develop a form of mutual respect which turns into understanding and
friendship.
Memory plays another important role in the temporal dimension
of the conceptual metaphor JOURNEY. Amit told an old friend (S.
M. Zaheer) earlier that he will be “forgetting things in reverse.” Ironi-
cally, and cruelly, his dementia will force him to lose his “best memo-
ries [...] first” (Mango Dreams: 0:15:46). He will forget about his
wife (Rohini Hattangadi) and son, his successful career as a doctor,
and his affluent life in Ahmedabad. His earliest and most painful
memories, Amit predicts, will be the last he will have to encounter.
From this perspective, the journey can be read as an active decision to
face Amit’s past. It will enable him to relive his life once again, ulti-
mately leading to his place of origin. Amit will encounter his memo-
ries in reverse, slowly building in dramaturgy and preparing him to
face his painful past at the climatic end of his journey. While dementia
can be read as forcing Amit to endure this encounter, his decision to
embark on his trip turns his fate into an active choice.
Throughout the journey, we see how it visually transforms both
protagonists. In the middle of their trip, Amit buys new cloths for
Salim and himself. Salim trades his shabby shirt for branded cloths,
138 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
while Amit, who was dressed in a Western-style suit, now wears tradi-
tional Sikh clothing. The transformation of the journey is now
inscribed on the protagonists’ bodies.
The journey provides many opportunities for the protagonists to
communicate with each other. Not only do they talk about mundane
issues like food and different diets of Muslims and Sikhs, but they also
discuss religion, politics, the importance of family, and the meaning of
life. The film represents the journey as helping to forge new social
relations, cultural understanding, and new meaning of painful memo-
ries. Both Amit and Salim come to realize how the other suffered from
violence. The journey enables both protagonists to encounter their
memories through metaphorical expressions such as physically visiting
and seeing places, meeting people, sharing food, and listening to
music.
60
They visit iconic places of “India” and Indian history, a
Hindu temple, and a mosque where they encounter a Muslim spiritual
musical group. They also visit a hospital and a deserted train line
where Amit witnessed Sikhs massacre Muslims. Mango Dreams visu-
ally represents these places as embodied sites of remembrance. When
it is revealed that both lost their loved ones in intercommunal riots,
they recognize the meaninglessness of dominant narratives blaming
Hindus, Sikhs, or Muslims for committing violence. What matters is
recognizing the suffering of the individual. As Amit realizes, “[t]he
people who killed your wife, and the people who killed my family, are
the same. God did not divide us, men did” (Mango Dreams: 1:07:50).
The JOURNEY provides an opportunity for exchange between
the protagonists, which is represented as a social requirement for
PEACE. While there are literal transactions which lead to the repay-
ment of debt, PEACE fundamentally requires the acknowledgment of
a common sociality between the travelers as interactive and interde-
pendent social actors who share more commonalities than differences.
Salim, for example, initially agrees to take Amit to his home village
out of guilt as Amit treated Salim’s son, who was suffering from den-
gue, for free. Amit later reveals to Salim that he did not decide to
practice medicine for profit but out of an ethical vocation which posits
that “this body is meant to help others” (Mango Dreams: 0:47:34).
Consequently, there is no need to repay any debt. Nevertheless, Salim
will later redeem a pawn which represents a precious memory to
Amit, not out of guilt, but as an act of friendship.
The JOURNEY metaphor thus represents PEACE as a multidi-
mensional process. It has a temporal dimension, starting with the
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 139
deceleration of speed, which is visually reinforced by successive moves
of slowing down. At the same time, the JOURNEY makes Amit revisit
the places of the most important stages of his life in reverse. He first
encounters his “best memories” of his later years before he succes-
sively faces the more painful and unsettling ones. The metaphor signi-
fies that moving toward peace is a slow and difficult process. It
requires not only actively facing one’s own painful memories, but also
recognizing the other’s suffering.
What facilitates this process, even enables it, is company. The
interaction and interdependence between Amit, the Sikh doctor, and
Salim, the Muslim rickshaw driver, represents the social dimension of
PEACE as a peacebuilding and reconciliation process. It is through
their discussions that both protagonists transform their own perspec-
tives toward the other. In Salim, this entails making peace with “the
Hindus” who killed his wife and whom he eventually manages to for-
give. For Amit, this requires coming to terms with his troubled past,
and encountering his feeling of guilt for causing his brother to run
away into the arms of his supposed killers. The social exchange
between Amit and Salim works as a metaphorical expression which
helps them reframe the narrative of interreligious conflict in a new
moral way. It helps the travelers to attach a new meaning to the sites
they visit, which are, on a larger scale, also emblematic places in, and
metaphoric expressions of, the biography of the Indian nation. Rather
than forgetting the pain, this journey is about finding a new balance
in realizing that violence is political and not the defining essence of a
given group or religion.
The JOURNEY can be thus read as an act of liberation from the
metaphorical prison of one’s individual and cultural memories,
expressed, for example, in one national history and one national nar-
rative which connects past, present, and future in a way that can be
epistemologically violent by neglecting or even erasing the suffering of
others. By contrast, the JOURNEY as a conceptual metaphor enables
a mental, physical, and, eventually, moral transformation of the indi-
vidual, and, possibly, the nation as an imagined community. The
JOURNEY is represented here as a conceptual metaphor that enables
such social relationships, which may lead to a more inclusive under-
standing of PEACE. Our reading of Mango Dreams suggests that such
an understanding may help us, the audience, eventually realize how
HOME as destiny is not just the final place at the end of the JOUR-
NEY: It can be everywhere.
140 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
PEACE IS BRIDGE
Mango Dreams represents PEACE metaphorically not only in terms
of a place (HOME) or process (JOURNEY) but also as a practice. The
film thus capitalizes on a recurring theme found in the Partition Cinema
of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh: the story of lost brothers (here sym-
bolizing Pakistan and India) and the “lost and found theme” that “res-
onate with memories of Partition of the subcontinent.”
61
The film
imagines the end of the journey as making peace with the past and pre-
sent by overcoming divisions: the division between the protagonists, the
division of brothers, and the division between countries.
In Mango Dreams, BRIDGE works as a conceptual metaphor which
transcends and eventually renders meaningless the physical and political
border between India and Pakistan. When Amit and Salim, now joined
by Amit’s son Abhi and his driver, finally reach the end of their journey,
it turns out that Amit’s ancestral village is now located in Pakistan. They
arrive at a remote border outpost where a bridge connects both coun-
tries. At the same time, the bridge represents their symbolic and political
separation. Amit is denied passage as he lacks the required documents.
When Amit finally passes the bridge to live with his brother (Naseerud-
din Shah), the border line disappears in the final shot. The metaphoric
significance of the bridge is visually transformed from a dividing into a
connecting technology (see Figures 1 and 2).
In this instance, the conceptual metaphor BRIDGE also acts as a
metaphorical expression. As the director John Upchurch points out:
I think the final scene visualizes not only peace but my main mes-
sage. The final scene takes place at a remote border crossing between
India and Pakistan. Fencing and barbed wire line both sides of the
borders. There is a small bridge connecting the two sides. Halfway
between India and Pakistan, there is a white line painted across the
bridge. This is where two brothers meet after 65 years of separation.
The brothers are divided by the white line and a small gate. The sol-
diers who guard the border, not the politicians, decide that the
morally right thing to do is to let the brothers reunite. So, the final
shot of the film is from above looking down at the border and we see
all the structures (the walls, fences, and barbed wire) separating the
two countries fade. And, finally, we see the thin white border line
completely disappear. The disappearance of the border and the
reunion of the two brothers was my visualization of peace.
62
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 141
The image of the uniting brothers (HOME) who are walking over
(JOURNEY) a disappearing border line (BRIDGE) is but the most
Figure 1. The border post. Screenshot from Mango Dreams. Dir. John
Upchurch. Jack Films, 2016. Reprinted with the permission of the
director and producer John Upchurch. [Colour figure can be viewed at
wileyonlinelibrary.com]
Figure 2. The disappearing border. Screenshot from Mango Dreams.
Dir. John Upchurch. Jack Films, 2016. Reprinted with the permission
of the director and producer John Upchurch. [Colour figure can be
viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
142 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
obvious visual metaphoric expression of PEACE in Mango Dreams as
it includes metaphorical expressions based on all three conceptual
metaphors.BRIDGE works as a conceptual metaphor for PEACE in
more fundamental ways. BRIDGEs to HOME in Mango Dreams are
wherever social relations can be formed and the embodied experiences
of self and other are recognized.
The JOURNEY metaphor can also be read as bridging past, pre-
sent, and future through constructing a family relationship over time
and space. This new set of relations is represented through the familial
re-connection between Amit and his brother, linking and reframing
Amit’s memories about the past with his newly discovered family in
what is now Pakistan. At the same time, a new bond is formed
between Amit and his son, who finally accepts his father’s journey
once he learned about his past, linking and reframing Amit’s previous
life in India with his son’s new life in the United States. As Abhi pro-
mises, his father will be a grandfather soon, hence, there will be an
intergenerational connection with the future. At the end of the JOUR-
NEY, both family rifts are healed. The pain about the past is not gone
but a new balance is established.
Reading the JOURNEY metaphor through the lens of the concep-
tual BRIDGE metaphor transforms the temporal, spatial, and moral
dimensions of JOURNEY from a linear to a circular logic. Rather
than moving forward or backward in time, as the linear concept of
the JOURNEY implies, the BRIDGE metaphor moves away from fixed
memories, connected to individual places and people, toward an
embodied practice of remembrance which transcends generations and
geographical borders. PEACE, while achieved through a process of
transformation, is not a fixed entity anymore but a holistic practice
across religious, political, and socio-cultural divides, even temporal
and spatial boundaries. The BRIDGE metaphor leads to the visual dis-
solution of the boundary itself, transcending the imagination of the
state as a fixed body, a CONTAINER. The boundary is transformed
into a BRIDGE which not only connects Amit and his brother, but
also India and Pakistan. The national boundary is overcome, both
visually and metaphorically. The BRIDGE metaphor extends beyond
simply a conceptual metaphor in Mango Dreams: It provides an over-
arching metaphorical structure which integrates HOME and JOUR-
NEY into a new spatial, temporal, and moral framework. It tran-
scends a linear conception of PEACE connecting places A and B.
PEACE is conceptualized as a practice.
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 143
CONCLUSION
This article demonstrates the usage of visual metaphor analysis to
study representations of peace in visual material such as film. Taking
on insights from cognitive linguistics, we operationalized visual meta-
phors by examining a process of double visualization in our material.
Using the example of the road movie Mango Dreams, we identified
metaphorical expressions of the underlying metaphorical theme,
PEACE, and linked them to three conceptual metaphors, PEACE IS
HOME, PEACE IS JOURNEY, and PEACE IS BRIDGE, to under-
stand how the story’s narrative represents PEACE. While our literature
review on visualizations of peace and conflict in International Rela-
tions found a striking absence of positive representations of peace in
the majority of research (see the introduction to this special issue), our
visual metaphor analysis of Mango Dreams suggests that this is possi-
ble. A focus on visual metaphors can help identify more holistic con-
ceptualizations of peace that go beyond the representation of peace as
the absence of war.
Mango Dreams does rely on more traditional representations of
war and conflict. We found such images interspersed in both visual
and audio news clips and in scenes depicting national rituals, such as
oaths of allegiance to the flag in a school. However, peace is not rep-
resented through the mere absence of violence. Violence in Mango
Dreams, signified in the protagonists’ painful memories and feelings of
hate and guilt, is a part of the individual and will likely remain as a
part of national narratives, practices, and iconic sites of remembrance.
Peace, however, is conceptualized as a holistic and embodied social
practice, which may work to reframe painful memories and destabilize
stereotypes and narratives. As the three conceptual metaphors suggest,
peace has a temporal, spatial, and moral dimension, which are inter-
connected and mutually constitutive. Mango Dreams expresses these
dimensions metaphorically through family relations as a discursive site
of rift and reunion.
63
We found three different but related conceptualizations of peace.
Firstly, peace is imagined as a possibly utopian place of destination
but also a contested site of struggle—it is both a state and a process.
64
Here, peace is represented as something fixed, a geographical place
with emotional meaning, which has been lost and can be regained
(HOME). Secondly, achieving peace, regaining a place once lost, is
imagined as a process, which can be painful and difficult, but also
144 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
redeeming. Forming social relations and recognizing the suffering of
others are necessary requirements for this process to succeed. Building
or re-building social relations are essential to overcome divisions and
establish social harmony. This process is further represented as a
transforming experience of the body, both individual and collective
(JOURNEY). Thirdly, once peace is no longer imagined as a fixed
endpoint or linear process but rather recognized as a social practice,
linear and essentialized conceptions of finding or achieving peace can
be overcome. What has been formerly represented as a fixed place can
now be everywhere (BRIDGE).
There are several potential lessons for International Relations and
Peace Research, in particular. Our analysis of visual metaphors in
Mango Dreams demonstrates a more encompassing understanding of
peace in terms of a place, a process, and a practice. In our reading,
these spatial metaphors provide a metaphorical alternative to a more
or less exclusive inside/outside logic such as in metaphors of the state
as a container. Rather than stressing fixed boundaries, Mango Dreams
offers a way of imagining peacebuilding as a transcending practice
that connects groups and individuals across time and space. Moreover,
the film takes embodied practices and experiences of individuals as its
starting point—rather than national biographies or narratives. By
stressing mutual experiences of loss and suffering, it provides a poten-
tial resource for social actors to transcend self/other dichotomies.
Finally, Mango Dreams offers, via visual representation, a utopian
vision of how a positive understanding of peace can be represented,
through the image of the disappearing border line at the end of the
plot. As such, the film could be used as a resource in local peacebuild-
ing activities such as peace didactics (see also our introduction to this
special issue).
Mango Dreams is an independent feature film, directed by an
American, starring local actors, financed through a global crowdfund-
ing campaign. Part of the beauty of Mango Dreams is that the film
itself defies fixed boundaries of categorization. Therefore, we hesitate
to ascribe our reading of its holistic conceptualization of peace to an
Indian, hence non-Western conception of peace, as may be suggested
by literature critical of liberal concepts of peace in the wake of the so-
called local turn on peacebuilding. Our analysis of its visual meta-
phors is interpretive and needs to make sense to convince our audi-
ence. Studying visual metaphors in film is, in this regard, also an
example of a social practice. Visual metaphor analysis, we found, can
Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 145
be a helpful method in this endeavor and should be considered by stu-
dents of visual material in both International Relations and Peace
Research.
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Visual Metaphors of Peace in Mango Dreams 149
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54. Upchurch, Personal correspondence via email, August 23, 2017.
55. Bajpai and Framke, “Revisiting Partition,” 2.
56. Bajpai and Framke, “Revisiting Partition,” 2.
57. Terence Wright, “Moving Images: The Media Representation of Refu-
gees,” Visual Studies 17, no. 1 (2002): 62.
58. Wright, “Moving Images,” 62.
59. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 10.
60. Though we will not provide a detailed analysis of the film’s soundtrack,
in sum the lyrics underline the overall metaphorical theme. They metaphorically
represent the road as a “road of life,” stressing that “beauty is everywhere.”
61. Viswanath and Malik, “Revisiting 1947 through Popular Cinema,” 62.
62. Upchurch, Personal correspondence via email, August 23, 2017.
63. Stephan Engelkamp and Philipp Offermann, “It’s a Family Affair: Ger-
many as a Responsible Actor in Popular Culture Discourse,” International Studies
Perspectives 13, no. 3 (2012): 235–253.
64. Lothar Brock, “Frieden. €
Uberlegungen zur Theoriebildung,” Theorien der
Internationalen Beziehungen (Politische Vierteljahresschrift Sonderheft) 21 (1990):
71–89.
150 PEACE & CHANGE / January 2020
