A Network of Metropolises: Uses of Perspective in 'Invisible Cities' Madeline Burleson College

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is not a traditional novel with a specific genre, plot, and style of rhetoric. Instead, it is filled with unique literary techniques such as a frame story encompassing a collection of short stories within each chapter. The premise of the book is a dialogue between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, illustrating Khan’s desire is to understand his empire, and how the cities inside his empire should function and exist. One can analyze each of the chapters in Invisible Cities in the terms of theme in order to understand the relationship between the cities and how they are each identified.

Chapter Eight specifically enlists the theme of perspective to demonstrate to Kublai Khan how each city may be observed in ways creating differing relationships, patterns, and purposes. These perspectives compile and develop into a creation of Khan’s empire. Yet in Invisible Cities, Kublai Khan is limited to the perspective of Marco Polo alone, therefore he is unsure whether Polo accounts for an unbiased perspective. In the beginning of the novel Calvino suggests, “Kublai Khan Does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars...