Jose Flores

Midterm Essay, English 2001

Oct 17, 2020

Loneliness is Pretty Bad

A lot of people are afraid of being alone. Loneliness can bring mental illness, such as depression, madness, and thoughts of suicide. These ideas can be associated with gothic literature. Gothic literature are pieces of literature where the main ideas are acts of death or madness. “The House of Asterion” by Jorge Luis Borges has elements of gothic literature that portray loneliness that lead the main character to madness. Another piece of literature that portrays these elements is the prologue to “The Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison. These two gothic literatures have characters that go through madness and maybe even death.

The Minotaur, who is also the narrator, from “The House of Asterion” is trapped in a labyrinth all by himself. He tells us his story, but for all we know he is telling himself this story because he is alone. As stated in the story “I crouch in the shadow of a pool or around a corner and pretend I am being followed.”, here you can see that him being alone has brought him to pretend things so he doesn’t feel alone. This leads to him say “that some day my redeemer would come”. He comes to the realization that his life isn’t worth much and that could be due to the fact that he is alone. The idea of someone making up imaginary people is for the insane, which is caused by the Minotaur’s loneliness. Even though in the story it is mentioned that the Minotaur can leave the labyrinth, people are afraid of him and run away from him, and this can make anyone feel alone. 

The narrator from “The Invisible Man” is in the same situation as the Minotaur from “The House of Asterion”. The Invisible Man himself states that he to others is invisible, “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination – – indeed, everything and anything except me.” Here the narrator is clearly conscious that he is indeed invisible to everyone, and if one is invisible to everyone then you are indeed alone. Due to his loneliness, he takes to violence. One night he bumped into someone and when the stranger cursed at him the narrator attacked him. Later, the narrator realized that the stranger had not seen him by saying “when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually”. The narrator had attacked someone without realizing that the person he attacked never noticed the narrator. The narrator is also isolated by himself. The narrator lives in a lonesome basement, to add to his loneliness he has lights all over his basement. The narrator’s reason for all these lights is, “Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form.” The narrator needs something to prove to himself that he is alive, which seems to be an effect of his isolation and loneliness.

These two characters/narrators both are isolated and alone. They both have something that tells them that they are alive. The narrator from “The Invisible Man” has his whole basement filled with lights just so that he himself knows that he is real. The narrator from “The House of Asterion” has been imprisoned in the labyrinth by the Queen. Both of these characters have been isolated and because of this isolation they have been driven to madness. Another example of the Minotaur’s madness is when he says “ But of all the games, I prefer the one about the other Asterion. I pretend that he comes to visit me and that I show him my house.” This is another prime example of the Minotaur going insane. Like the Minotaur, the Invisible needs contact with something/someone to feel like he is real. Along with the all lights he has in his basement, is also freeloading from the electric company “Monopolated Light & Power”. He had been using their services prior to moving to the basement, but the prices were absurdly high. Now he is freeloading as a way of fighting them but also as he says “It allows me to feel my vital aliveness.” These two characters need the feeling of “company” be it made up or from a distance to satiate their loneliness. 

Redemption is when one wants to redeem themselves by doing actions to satisfy themselves or someone else. In “The House of Asterion” the Minotaur is trying to redeem himself by waiting for the one “that some day my redeemer would come.” The person/entity he is trying to redeem himself for is his mother, the Queen. He was most likely placed in the labyrinth by his mother and his death would be his redemption for his mother. Like the Minotaur, the Invisible Man is trying to redeem himself too. The Invisible Man is not seen by others and he has all those lights in his apartment and “steals” from the electric company so that he can redeem himself to himself. He does all of this so that he can himself know that he in fact is not invisible. 

These pieces of gothic literature show us that isolation and loneliness and entrapment can cause one to go insane. Not only this, it makes one want to try to redeem themselves.