6/12/2022

The Premise

Alice, a young, carefree girl suddenly wakes up in Room 431 of a mysterious manor. There she encounters Serpent, the head of the manor, who tells Alice that as long as she is in her room, every wish and desire that she had would be granted instantly. But there is one condition: Shy must not leave the room under any circumstance, or if she did, her body will rot, and the further she goes, the more she would rot, until she dies. The Serpent exposits that the only way to leave the manor is to reach room 000, which even he, the Serpent, cannot do.

Introduction

Bibliomania is a short story of desire, denial, and temptation. Exploring the regrets that are present in everyone and the temptation of escapism. When presented a situation where every desire you could ever want is granted, it is seemingly the perfect world. What bibliomania explores is the downward spiral of chasing our desires, letting our temptations consume us to the point of no return and how we can fall victim to such temptation. The story never claims that desire is inherently negative, our desires are what makes us passionate, gives us drive, and lets us pursue our dreams. Filled with beautiful imagery, symbolism, and mystery, this is Bibliomania.

Allusions to Alice in wonderland

It is no accident that the main protagonist of this story is named “Alice”. Many people have heard of the story of Alice in Wonderland where a young girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole, discovers a new world and explores the many inhabitants and creatures of this new world. The Alice in Bibliomania does not fall down a literal rabbit hole but more of a metaphorical one as she travels to each of the new rooms she learns more about the manor and it’s inhabitants.

The first chapter, “Alice in Phantasmagoria” is a very clear play on the Alice in Wonderland title, but replaced with “Phantasmagoria”, which is a sequence of real or imaginary images that are dreamlike. This dreamlike setting does not only describe the initial room that Alice awakes in but is also referring to the whole premise of the manor in that every room is dream-like in fulfilling all your wishes and it is not reality. When every desire is fulfilled on the premise that the room will grant anything you want, are you really living? are the desires you have worth it when they are given to you?

Alice’s Descent

After Alice has her little chat with Serpent she realises that she is hungry (this is foreshadowing for the ending of this story), she wishes for all the dessert in the world. After she is done eating all her food she immediately walks into the other room. The emptiness of her room indicates her lack of material desires, there is nothing that can tempt her. She only wants to move onto the next room only to reach room 000 and exit the manor. She begins her descent and stumbles into room 430.

Room 430: The Samurai and Revenge

The room echos with “Sinner”, a giant looming samurai is the main presence of the room. He is the judge of this court and it is only him who gives judgement to the sinners. This room is the first example of the temptation of escapism. The inhabitant of this room was a victim of severe bullying, with his most damaging memory was being forced to be a chair for his bully. All the people that witnessed this bullying continued ignoring the cries for help.

Now, a massive samurai manifested from his anger he continuously beheads his bully. Oddly enough, the bully has a cuboid head symbolising how indifferent the samurai feels to his bullying, he doesn’t understand why he was bullied to this extent and now the bully’s face (identity) doesn’t matter anymore, the samurai is only consumed with anger and revenge. Falling victim to temptation.

The occupant manifesting himself into a samurai is ironic in the sense that the actions and thinking of the occupant directly mirrors that of a samurai. Samurai’s are often seen to have an extreme sense of honour, they would even take their own lives in the face of failure, honour-bound suicide (seppukku). The samurai of this room however, is so distraught and consumed with anger and revenge that he believes himself to be just in his actions to continuously murder his bully. He views himself as the honourable one, but is he really?

Room 413: The Bird and Comfort in Fantasy

This room is an inverted world with the occupant being a bird, their wish was to be free from meaningless borders drawn across the ground and to be free from the unsightly conflicts of man. Birds are widely regarded as symbols of freedom and eternity, these concepts are what the occupant of this room sought after, transforming into a bird.

The Serpent adds that the bird soars heaven every day and has forgotten that she was once a human. This panel perfectly encapsulates the entirety of the occupant. The beautiful night sky with scattered shining stars are juxtaposed with the shining explosions that appear on the land. Heaven vs Earth. The human face indicating a hint of humanity left in the bird.

In reality, the skies are representative of our wishes and dreams, we wish upon a star when we want something to come true. But the earth keeps up grounded. The inverted world of this room is a perversion of this very premise, the occupant chooses to be grounded in fantasy but allows the reality to be dreams. This is emphasised by the inverted soaring of the bird, indicating that they choose to face fantasy rather than reality.

Room 385 - The Hero and Esteem

The occupant of this room is a hero that goes by “Space Mobile Prince, Eraqram”, he is the Hero of this room that purges evil-doers like the monsters that attacked Alice. Alice is confused with his introduction, he repeats his name and points to himself. Alice remains confused and the hero “pauses” the monster and asks if she has ever heard of Eraqram.

Funnily, the monsters of this room and grotesque yet they repeat phrases like “Work”, “Get married”. We can immediately understand who this “hero” views his villains and evil-doers to be. His parents. After defeating these monsters, multiple beautiful women cladded in bikinis materialise and swoon for the hero. The final act of this room is an enormous monster that torments the hero by calling him “my pathetic son”, “leave your room! Work!!” “get married”. He defeats this monster, and the swarm of women continue to chase after him.

In this room, it is clear that the occupant was once someone cooped up in his room playing video games, obsessing over this hero and women. He was so consumed in this lifestyle that he vilified his parents. This entire world is his personal fantasy, taking the guise of Eraqram, defeating monsters (his parents), and having women chase after him.

With Alice, we can clearly see how fragile this fantasy is, he has an extremely low self-esteem so when Alice asserts that he isn’t young he gets extremely hurt by it, to the point where the monsters even attack him for not being able to handle the words of a little girl. So even when in a room with all your desires fulfilled, the true worst enemy of this hero is himself.

Room 285: The Dining Table and Time

This room is the most “normal” room of the entire story. The Serpent explains that the occupant of this room was a teacher that taught logic and ethics to children so they could grow up to be good adults. Ironically, his family was far from the ideal that he preached. Being stuck between his inapplicable doctrines he suffered.

Stuck in a cycle of being depressed, suffering, and in pain, he never even thought about amending his relationship with his family. And before he knew it, they were gone. Now in a the eternal dining table, with an the idealised version of his family he eats, eats, and eats. A Gluttony for nostalgia of a life before suffering.

Room 276: The Bog and Vanity

Alice enters a bog, she is greeted by a beautiful lady that questions why she wants to return the the outside world. She repeats that there is nothing but pain. The lady tells Alice that within this manor, her beauty is everlasting. The longer and longer she speaks to Alice, the more and more that roses and thorns start to arise from her body and the greenery around her. The once lush bog slowly turns into a deadly rosebush.

The occupant of this room was once someone who suffered incredibly from an unknown disease, it disfigured her face, and skin, to the point where she believed that her outward appearance was not her.

The rose is a reoccurring object that appears through the bog woman’s story. Metaphorically, a rose is something that is very beautiful, but is thorny and can cause pain. This is directly the personality of the bog woman, she is vain only caring about her beauty and when that beauty is attacked she feels threatens and becomes aggressive. She is someone who is obsessed with vanity, her appearance, to the point that she could not accept her own appearance. She escapes from her reality and lives her life as someone who is outwardly beautiful.

The Snake and Temptation

The story of bibliomania has strong allusions to Adam and Eve. Snakes symbolise temptation and the persuasive nature of desire. The Serpent who literally takes the form of a snake is the personification of this temptation, not only does he entice the residents to stay in their rooms, he accommodates them and makes sure they continue living their escapist fantasy. Similarly, to the snake in Adam and Eve he does not directly force the residents to do anything that they don’t want, in fact, he only presents their desire and each and every one of them bite the metaphorically apple... except for Alice.

The Butterfly and Rebirth

Everyone knows the life cycle of a butterfly, they start off as caterpillars who live slow and gruelling lives and then eventually emerge to be a butterfly. This life cycle is similar to Alice’s physical appearance throughout the story. When she initially enters the book, she is her normal self, she is curious, human. As she descents into the deeper rooms of the manor, her body rots and she slowly transforms into a grotesque monster. In the final chapter, she finally emerges out of the book and she is revealed to be a beautiful monster.

Metamorphosis

Bibliomania is a story about chasing desires, denying truths, and the temptation of fulfilling those desires. Every occupant was haunted by the circumstances of the past, they were given an “escape” and they slowly lost themselves to it. When living in an escapist fantasy and having your deepest desires fulfilled, do you really have anything left to live for? Bibliomania says that there isn’t. While the occupants folded to the temptation, Alice embodies how you should deal with your problems, by moving forward. Breaking out of your cocoon and beginning your transformation into a better version of you, The Butterfly.