House of Asterion by Luis Borges

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The life of the ostracized is something widely expressed in Luis Borges “House of Asterion”. The metaphor being Asterion being a prisoner of something without restriction. Asterion explains how he is a (lonely) prisoner of the labyrinths: “Another ridiculous falsehood has it that I, Asterion, am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there are no locked doors, shall I add that there are no locks?”. It’s almost a metaphor that explains to how when someone is ostracized to the point they feel like they are in a prison in their own space in this world because the people around him don’t accept him. As the result the setting is further elaborated into a prison it is more than a prison than the house or maze Asterion had bluntly told us about. “Besides, one afternoon I did step into the streets; if I returned before night, I did so because of the fear that the faces of the common people inspired in me”. The labyrinths are not restricting him to stay there but, if he were to leave he would have been too revoked to stay in the outside world he explored one night. Because he was as scared as the people who wanted didn’t want him there.

The life of someone who is ostracized is something that is hidden in Penaranda’s story. The metaphor of the story is the father (the popular clique) vs. uncle Andres (un-popular clique). “Well my father was right it was a lot of work. But my uncle and I stayed the full two weeks just the same. My grades dropped more than I anticipated”. Amador’s choice was to go with his uncle instead of his father, his choice affected how the ‘land’, would turn out in the long run. Metaphorically the way I correlated it with my idea the land as Amador’s social life in general. “We hoped on the karomata and whipped the old ma...

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...le looked and seemed to appear like a stranger already.” In this part of the price it comes out to bite Amador and his uncle, all that hard work was forfeit; all gone and didn’t seem to even matter because the land was now considered useless. Unlike the other stories this is where the depression is really represented: in the end. The quote translates into Amador’s social life going to waste because he chose the not so popular clique, which can be concluded to ruin his life. “Would you believe that Ariadne? The Minotaur scarcely defended himself”. If it was not understood, I perceived this as Theseus killing Asterion in the end. It seemed to me that it meant that Asterion died, or killed himself because he couldn’t stand the pressure of the ostracization coming from the people. It seemed to be the news leaked out about his death and people were gossiping about it.

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