The Image of the Labyrinth in the Novel “The Palace of Dreams”

Abstract

The image of the labyrinth is a very popular image in the world literature. It originates since mythology and it is spread since then in Homer, Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Blake’s works as well as others’ works. Modern literature gives us labyrinth – haunted genius in Yeats, Joyce, Kafka and Calvino, among others in, overt manifestations. Among others, the image of the labyrinth becomes a favourite image for Latin-American writers such as Borges or Marques. The image of the labyrinth is of special importance to the contemporary literature since we are allowed a metaphor by literature as regards variety enriched with other connotations, such as fear, anxiety, powerlessness, loneliness, isolation. This paper is focused on the novel “The Palace of Dreams”. Oftentimes “The Palace of Dreams” tends to become labyrinthic in some dimensions, presenting the relation between the individual and the autocratic power, the relation between Kafkian isolated individual and the large building which expresses the dominance of reign and power. The relation between the individual diminished to a servant and the building magnified to a palace is labyrinthic, since oftentimes dominance of the power of the labyrinth towards the individual does not only lie in his real dimensions, but also on the virtually outspoken magnitude upon the individual. The Palace exercises power on the psyche, which makes the building own the individual’s powers.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p255