The Maze Runner Essay

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The first “level of sensation” (Deleuze 1981, 36) at the forefront of these works is the “maze”. Mather (2014, 3) understands Hogg’s maze to be an armature of pattern and grid which acts as a way to control energy. Cézanne used the tactical-optical space of figuration in a similar way, as a “framing” device to allow “the sensation to endure in itself” (Colebrook 2005, 73).
Hogg’s “maze” motif came about at a time when he was looking for “a visual device” whilst also reading Joyce’s Ulysses (Hogg 2015). A passage in the novel elicited a psychic cliché (Deleuze 1981, 87) for the artist, an association with auguries and divining - the practices of interpreting the future through reading the entrails of animals - specifically when Leopold Bloom …show more content…

To move in a Labyrinth is a circling around in which one revisits the same places. And yet, such motion indirectly leads towards the heart of things (Gilloch 1996, 68). The maze, by contrast, has choices along the path, leading to the possibility of infinite routes within it. Our fascination with the maze is comparable to our fascination with the unfathomable abyss, the whirlpool or our strange compulsion to approach a cliff’s edge (Cirlot 1962, 166). The maze is by its very nature confusing and signifies the unconscious, error and remoteness (Cirlot 1962, 167), whereas the labyrinth is more of a contemplative space, which may be regarded as a metaphorical knot to be untied (Cirlot 1962, 183). Which brings us to the thread which Ariadne gifted to Theseus to navigate the labyrinth, and signaling what Deleuze (Vitanza 1997, 299) described as the “move to affirmation”. In the case of this labyrinth, Ariadne’s thread serves as a metaphor for “rationality”. Theseus’ discursive reasoning, which was demonstrated through his use of the thread would allow him to become the master of his mind, and to overcome the animal instincts which were the impulses of the Minotaur (Vitanza 1997, 299). Deleuze (Vitanza 1997, 299) explains that “Theseus is a representation of the higher man: he is the sublime and heroic man, the one who takes up

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