When Robert Pirsig wrote the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," his underlying theme was a little more complex then what it may appear on the exterior surface. For an average reader, the book may seem to be a simple seventeen-day journey of a father and son across the country, along with a great deal of philosophy woven in between. If you aren't careful enough in reading it, you might miss the whole objective that Pirsig tries to implicate. However, if you can analyze deeper and look past the false storyline, you will find that the book contains a whole mirage of ideas and elaborate theories on life and the world within it. It is a search for truth, and understanding of knowledge at its highest. The narrator and his son are simple puppets used to string along the underlying themes that Pirsig is trying to get across. Within these "puppets" you will find the true meaning of the story depicted through Pirsig's metaphoric use of imagery.
             In the narrators journey across the country he falsely sets out for a peaceful motorcycle drive with his son and his friends. However, along the path he is faced with brief flashbacks down memory lane. As "Phaedrus" slips in and out of his mind, he finds himself no longer on a peaceful path to California, but on a quest into the "higher country of the mind" to find "truth." As the author beings to understand more and more about his buried past, he continues to revive these previous ideas and make them the main focus of his journey." Truth is now what he (Phaedrus) wants to find, along with the complex ideologies of philosophy.
             One of the strongest forms of imagery that is projected throughout the story can be seen circled around the perplexing ideas of philosophy and "truth." For a young Phaedrus, the mountains were a place he could scamper off to and explore his newfound ideolo
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