The Journey as a Metaphysical Quest leading to the Creation of a Multiple Identity

The two sources that have been analysed above provide two different examples of “journey”. It has been noticed how The Overland Mail features a mere earthly journey representing a routine task that must be daily fulfilled with no sense of spiritual mission and enlightenment; on the contrary, Remembering Babylon proves to be a metaphysical journey for its protagonist. Kipling's main character is not willing to change, whereas Malouf's one is; the first is destination-focused, the latter has no idea about his final destination but owns more strength and positive archetypes to draw on, thus resulting in being a true hero undergoing his life quest. It has also been shown how the two works can be analysed in postcolonial terms, by taking the concept of “orientalism” into account. If The Overland Mail may reveal an imperialist view of India rooted in colonial discourses and might as well disclose surreptitious criticism against India's colonial situation, not only does Malouf's work make the reader bluntly face the difference between the white colonisers and black indigenous Australians, but it also endeavours to make people take an active position, by engaging them to fight against colonial stereotypes to achieve peace and harmony in the utopian vision of a “new Australia”.
Despite the fact that the two characters, the mail carrier and Gemmy Fairley, have undergone a different existential experience, by having faced different ordeals and met different enemies in their life “journey”, both men seem to share a unique in-between position: they find themselves between the white British colonisers and the colonised indigenous peoples, thus not being fully any of them.
The next subparagraphs aim to clarify this in-between position of Kipling's runner and Gemmy, by thus considering the postcolonial key concepts of ambivalence, mimicry and hybridity developed and promoted by postcolonial Indian English scholar and critical theorist Homi K. Bhabha.