{"id":446,"date":"2021-11-25T15:57:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-25T22:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/?p=446"},"modified":"2021-11-25T15:57:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-25T22:57:02","slug":"american-labyrinth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/2021\/11\/25\/american-labyrinth\/","title":{"rendered":"American Labyrinth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inside, the building branches vertically and horizontally into hallways, offices, windows, courtrooms, and waiting rooms\u2026 it\u2019s easy to get lost. The building\u2019s labyrinthine architecture is, in a way, a replica of the U.S. immigration system. And, as in any labyrinth, some find their way out and some don\u2019t. Those who don\u2019t might remain there forever, invisible specters who go up and down elevators and wander the hallways, imprisoned in circular nightmares. (Luiselli 35-36).\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Luisilli\u2019s equivocation of the physical architecture of the building to the US immigration system is incredibly apt, and her evocation of the labyrinth reminds me of Franz Kafka\u2019s <\/span>The Trial<\/span><\/i> and the Greek myth of the Minotaur\u2019s Labyrinth. This specific passage has many parallels with Kafka\u2019s novel. Josef K, the protagonist of <\/span>The Trial<\/span><\/i>, must both physically and mentally navigate the court system when he is accused of committing a crime. However, (spoiler alert) he is thwarted at every turn, and after a year of trying the escape the impossible labyrinth, he pays a couple of people to murder him. In the novel, and in Luiselli\u2019s explanation of the building, both authors understand that the physical architecture mimics a bureaucratic system that is trying to confuse and exhaust the victim — they are \u201cimprisoned in a circular nightmare\u201d (Luiselli 36). A more cynical reading would suggest that Luiselli evokes the Minotaur\u2019s Labyrinth when she compares the system to the Labyrinth. Young Athenians were sent into the labyrinth as sacrificial victims to be devoured by the minotaur. This comparison would suggest that the children were always meant to lose, and they never stood a chance — the game was rigged from the start.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Luiselli acknowledges the victims of this obfuscated system. She recognizes them as ghosts, spectres — perhaps suggesting that they are dead or sent to their death because of the decisions made in the court. Alternatively, Luiselli could also be referring to all the people that have already died on their way to this building; the people trying to navigate the nightmare world that is their real life. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside, the building branches vertically and horizontally into hallways, offices, windows, courtrooms, and waiting rooms\u2026 it\u2019s easy to get lost. The building\u2019s labyrinthine architecture is, in a way, a replica of the U.S. immigration system. And, as in any labyrinth, some find their way out and some don\u2019t. Those who don\u2019t might remain there forever, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52974,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[155,156],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-span312","tag-luiselli","tag-week12"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52974"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}