"Please somebody get me out of this labyrinth!"
Simón Bolívar's last words (Venezuelan politician. Led the Latin American community in their rebellion against Spain, circa 1815-20.)
"It's not life or death, the labyrinth.""Um, OK. So what is it?"
"Suffering," she said. "Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about living or dying? How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?"
an extract from Looking for Alaska, by John Green.
Until this unit, I never saw the metaphor of the labyrinth as something to embrace. The labyrinth... since I saw that movie with David Bowie in it of the same name, I saw it as a place or monsters and of suffering and turmoil (don't even get me started on Pan's Labyrinth... that movie is kind of scary...). My reading led me to continue with this mindset. When I read Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's account of Simon Bolivar, The General in his Labyrinth, the labyrinth was used as an unspecific metaphor throughout the text whenever Bolivar considered taking his own life.
Looking for Alaska dissects this particular text and analyses the theme of the labyrinth in depth, first thinking of it as death or oncoming death, then as life itself, then as suffering (as seen above). In all respects of the labyrinth, however, it is seen as something to get out of, to escape, and to forget.
According to the almighty Wikipedia, the primary difference between a maze and labyrinth is that the purpose of a maze is to lure and capture, and a labyrinth is constructed with a path to follow. I think this idea of "oh god, just somebody get me out of this damn labyrinth" comes from the endlessness that an elaborate labyrinth would encompass, and also a lack of patience within the labyrinth created by fear. I think that life, death, or suffering could be used synonymously with this idea of the labyrinth. Death is simple without fear. Life is simple without fear. Suffering, and the labyrinth are simple when we do not fear it.
After looking at the labyrinth as a vessel of suffering for so long, it was a bit difficult to enable myself to embrace it. So, what is the labyrinth?
Is it a passage, a road? Then why take it- to walk in, get lost, and walk out again?
Or is it a journey? One to suffer, to live, to die, all in one single manifestation?
Do we ever really get out of the labyrinth, and are you sure we entered just this year?
This year will be a journey through the labyrinth, but as an artist or otherwise, I can guarantee it's not my first time I've walked through this space.
2 comments:
Wow - I can't think of something similarly deep to say so I'll just have to leave it at - "That's really deep. Cool!". It was really interesting to read, and makes a lot of sense.
I wish I was a good a writer as you are - so coherent and concise!
i didnt even think of it like that
sometimes i think i just think what i was told to think........ i think?
U R a very good artist, dont compare yourself to bonnie... once you do that your comparing yourself to perfection
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