Analysis Of Pilgrimage In Victor Turner's Film '

What made Tom become different after the pilgrimage? Victor Turner’s theory of pilgrimage can explain this with ideas of “the liminal state”, “communitas”, and “antistructure”. However, his theory of communitas confronts some challenges in explaining the case of Tom.

In this film, almost every character experienced the liminal state. According to Turner, the liminal state is a marginal phase when people have left one group yet haven’t joined to a new one. Tom is a typical example of it. He lost his son Daniel; in other words, he left the group of fathers but didn’t found a new identity for himself. He also didn’t know how to face the death of Daniel, so he sometimes had an illusion that Daniel was still alive, which showed that his emotion was not stable during that period. This applies to the young woman Sarah, the Irishman, and the writer as well. Sarah got divorced
Turner thinks that after experiencing the liminal state, people will have a strong feeling of connectedness. In this film, the four characters didn’t know each other at first, and the only thing they shared in common was that they all undertook the pilgrimage to Camino de Santiago. The young woman did it out of the religious reason, but the other three travelers didn’t hold the same beliefs. Tom was to continue Daniel’s wish; the Irishman was to lose weight, and the writer was to find something for writing. However, their communitas was developed in the process of the pilgrimage. They walked together, ate together, drank together, and supported each other. Another touching moment was that when Tom’s bag was robbed by a little boy, the other three all helped Tom to chase after the boy. In spite of different social identities, Tom finally became friends with them and his feeling of communitas was deepened in the process of incorporating into this new