The Lesson of the Maze:
Knowing that the solution is “The World” gives us the last piece of the puzzle necessary to uncover the lesson of the maze. In the prologue the guide / narrator ominously says,
“Like all others they think the Maze was made for them; actually, it is the other way around. They think I am some poet who will lead them through the symbols and spaces of this Underworld. They think I will teach them lessons. They should call me Cerberus…I am the lesson.”
Knowing the solution to MAZE is “the world” and reflecting on the book as a whole is all that is necessary to uncover the lesson of MAZE.
See if you can discover the lesson of Manson’s MAZE.
Warning: The lesson is deeply pessimistic.
- White Raven
The prologue suggests the visitors believe the Maze was designed for them—as if it exists to be solved, understood, or to impart wisdom. However, the text flips this perspective, implying that the visitors themselves exist for the Maze. This suggests themes of futility, entrapment, and the illusion of agency.
By stating, “They should call me Cerberus…I am the lesson,” the narrator aligns themselves with the guardian of the underworld, implying that they do not guide the lost but rather ensure they remain trapped.
I think the true lesson of the maze is not one enlightenment but of existential realization: we are not masters of our fate in the world – we are all subject to it.
I think the real meaning is not everything is as it seems yet everything is as it seems. Sometimes we get caught up in minute details and miss what matters.
Polybius square?
Polybius square – Dante’s Mystical number – Elgar’s Enigma
Sorry if I seem to be intrusive lately. I have a theory as to the lesson of the maze. Though I have not written this in a normal and complete fashion, could it be related to seine fishing, 2 pair trawling, doors (otter boards) in the net. Looking into a fisherman’s workbook.
This theory seems to be a non-starter.
Idea: the world is cruel one. A select few will find happiness (solving the riddle) more will find moderate success (the path) many, however wander life without purpose (the loop) and most people succumb to the abyss of failure.
How do you think the Guide fits into that?
The prologue tells us that the Maze is indistinguishable from the world; not even the Guide can tell which half is the Maze. The Riddle of the Maze doesn’t just give us the word “world/Earth/globe” — it tells us that everyone will live in it.
We are further told that we bear the world on our shoulders, an odd pronouncement since we literally do not and most people wouldn’t seem to do so figuratively.
On the other hand, the “you” in “like Atlas you bear it upon your shoulders” might refer not to every person on Earth, or even the reader of the book, but to the guests inside the Maze. But it doesn’t apply to them literally or figuratively either, right?
Well, the Guide also refers to the Maze as an Underworld, and that can inform our reading. If the guests are shades of the dead, their bodies may be buried in the Earth, literally bearing earth on top of them. Or it may simply mean that as inhabitants of the underworld the upper world rests upon them.
If the Maze is identified with the world, and the the Riddle notes (in future tense, mind you) that all will live in the world, and the Maze is an abode of the dead, the Riddle may be saying that everyone, eventually, will live inside the Earth — that is, in the underworld.
Note further that there is no escape from the Maze, and even upon solving this prophecy the guests are doomed to fulfill it. As readers we have an opportunity that guests never will, to see Room 24 and then go back. But the guests will always land in the darkness, and they will never escape. And every person in the surface world will eventually die and become a guest.
“Even I was oppressed by the weight that hung over our heads.”
My first instinct, especially after reading the section on the House as a character, was to think of the Guide as the Devil, wanting only to lead them further from the center and closer to the abyss (Room 24). And if the solution to the maze is “the world”… perhaps the lesson is that the entire purpose of entering the maze is to lose, the entire purpose of living is to die. That’s the only thing I can think of that I would consider “deeply pessimistic”, at any rate.
One thing we can take from this… WR uses this chunk of text as part of the Lesson of the Maze, which means that it is probably not part of the Riddle of the Guide.
So confusing… But I thought about substituting the solution into the quote. “Like all others they think THE WORLD was made for them; actually, it’s the other way around.”