Map Making

I felt that the group work that we did in class on Monday dealing with Servants of the Map was enlightening. My group was assigned to analyze how botany and maps were present in the short story. Out of the several passages that we got botany and mapping played a role in all. The one I remember most was when Max was told that maps shouldn’t be made for someone else to decipher, they should only be made for the maker. I thought this passage was interesting because I always figured that most maps were made for everyone to use. The maps I see in textbooks are certainly used for the reader to gain knowledge, and the maps that I have hanging in my basement are used to represent the different contents of the world.

           

When I think more deeply about it I do remember that as a child I used to make maps of my house and of my yard. I pretended the maps lead to hidden places and treasures that if I followed I would stumble upon. The maps that I created were made for my personal use and for no one else. They displayed my imaginative thoughts that I had growing up. If I were to analyze my own map making and explain how it pertained to who I was at that time, I believe that it would show the sense of adventure that I once had. It would also display my playfulness and my hobby of drawing. I didn’t share these maps with anyone because they were for my eyes only, I didn’t want the prying of eyes of my sister to find them, for fear that she would tease me. In a sense, the maps held a piece of my past personality.

I now understand what the passage meant by saying that some maps are for the makers use only. I believe that Max got personal enjoyment out of making his own maps, and that by writing places and mountain ranges down the maps no longer contained just geographic places, but memories and personal connections of his as well.