André Gide, in his short story ‘Theseus’ reimagines the myth of the Greek hero and fills in the gaps where the ancient narratives are lacking. Gide adeptly captures the pressure to perform that each hero experiences. In the first chapter, Aegeus, Theseus’s father, says to his son: “Your childhood is over. Be a man. Show your fellow men what one of their kind can be and what he means to become. There are great things to be done. Claim yourself.” After Theseus defeats various, local monsters, he is eager to take on his biggest challenge yet, defeating the Cretan Minotaur.
In Gide’s story, when Theseus lands in Crete he visits the artist Daedalus who explains to him how his labyrinth works and the only way to defeat it. This passage showcases Gide’s brilliance as a writer, an artist, and even a philosopher:
“I thought that the best way of containing a prisoner in the labyrinth was to make it of such a kind, not that he couldn’t get out (try to grasp my meaning here), but that he wouldn’t want to get out. I therefore assembled in this one place the means to satisfy every kind of appetite. The Minotaur’s tastes were neither many nor various; but we had to plan for everybody, whosoever it might be, who would enter the labyrinth. Another and indeed the prime necessity was to fine down the visitor’s will-power to the point of extinction.”
A relevant story for the 21st Century, where many are caught up in a labyrinth of their own choosing, a labyrinth composed of people and things that induce a “delicious intoxication” and are “rich in flattering delusions.”
Originally published in French as Thésée, Gallimard, 1946 and in English by Pantheon the same year. Newly translated by Andrew Brown, Hesperus Press, 2002
A Personal Anthology 