Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

257
uncertainty, anxiety, and absurd juxtapositions – can tell us more about Ward’s work
than the kinds of “moral argument” characteristic of Wordsworth.
Summary
The Navigator draws on a number of motifs that recur throughout his work. One of
these is the white horse (glimpsed briefly in In Spring One Plants Alone) which plays an
important role in the scene where the medievals cross the harbour by boat, eventually
saving Connor from falling after the rope breaks when he is attempting to place the
cross on the cathedral spire. As Judith Dale notes, the “apocalyptic white horse”, like
“the flying skeleton”, has further significance in recalling “traditional medieval death
imageries”. 839 Downie also comments on the white horse in The Navigator, stressing
pagan rather than Christian associations:
Pagan horse worship was common, and held a strong power within Celtic
tradition – for example the kings of Ireland were ferried between this world and
the next within the womb of the White Mare Epona, and it is this white horse,
which is drawn in the chalk at Uffington in Berkshire, England. Ward’s obvious
fascination with the animal recalls Tarkovskij’s similar employment of its
presence in several of his films, both as an expression of a (literally) unbridled
source of libidinous energy, and as a harbinger of separation or death. 840
In Map of the Human Heart the white horse figures both as a real object and as a
representation, with the images of the white horse at Uffington reminding the viewer of
its historical and spiritual significance. Overall, the meaning of the horse in Ward’s
work can not be fully explained by reference to any one traditional frame of reference -
it needs to be seen as an object of mystery and fascination that accumulates associations
over the range of his oeuvre. Such recurring themes are common and are evidence of
his auteurist approach. Another example is the theme of the navigator, personified here
by the boy Griffin who guides the others on their quest, but in the final analysis “sees
too much”. This theme is further developed in Map of the Human Heart where the
motifs of map and cartographer become catalysts for the main action of the film.
839 Dale, "Circumnavigations," 44.
840 Downie, The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey 54.