the minotaur: just a sad lil guy?

the minotaur by george frederic watts, 1885. the minotaur overlooks his home's walls towards the sea, leaning on the edge eagerly. in his left hand/claw a presumably dead bird, its beak half open and eyes squinted. 

there was something always aggresively human to me about this painting. a reminder that the minotaur had a name, asterion, and despite its horns and claws it was gifted with some dimension of humanity, the limits of which were never truly clarified. did he have dreams? did he feel sad? was his mind only plagued by hunger and lust and survival?

it was surprising to find that the author's inspiration was a sudden exposure of the traffic in child prostitution by journalist wt stead. as a criticism of male lust, watts portrays the minotaur as a thoughtless animal looking out to the sea, desperately waiting for his fourteen yearly sacrificies to arrive to the labyrinth, clutching onto a small bird that symbolizes innocence and the purity of youth. perhaps the minotaur hates the bird for it has the freedom he can never earn. perhaps he kills it out of pleasure, or out of a thirst instigated by the thought of his future victims. he's dominated by his instinct, a violent and hungry one. his humanity is lost in the wildness, perhaps making sense of his exterior: he thinks like an animal, has the instincts of an animal, is an animal.

but this was never what i saw. perhaps my mind has lived in borges' world for too long and could only think of the creature from 'la casa de asterion'. borges remembers he has a name and reminds us of its meaning: 'starry'. and maybe its because i believe in the power of names, how they inscribe onto us, that i can't help see the minotaur with anything but compassion.

borges' minotaur is a lonely minotaur. playful, childish, tired but hopeful. he knows enough to suffer, but not enough to understand why. in watt's minotaur i see a being that looks - the kind of look that goes beyond the optical nerve, the kind that yearns. i do also recognize an eagerness in the way his body is positioned, the way his tail has risen up and his claws threaten to move further to the edge of the wall. the first time i looked at it, instead of bloodlust i saw curiosity. excitement. an infinite sea, a world of possibilities, a color and texture and a multitude of questions far beyond the ones contained in the labyrinth's gray stone walls. in short, i recognized a melancholy that can only be human.

however, in borges' story the minotaur is not a captive, which he makes sure the reader understands:

'otra especie ridícula es que yo, Asterión, soy un prisionero. ¿Repetiré que no hay una puerta cerrada, añadiré que no hay una cerradura?'

he is alone in his home because there is no one outside who looks like him. to the wide-eyed paralyzed stares of horror he receives the one time he exits the labyrinth, he finds an answer to through his royal descendance:

'no en vano fue una reina mi madre; no puedo confundirme con el vulgo, aunque mi modestia lo quiera'

he plays with an imaginary replica of himself and wonders about the visitors that come visit once a year. the angry terrified people who's lives he easily ends to end up alone yet again, their bodies a distinctive new decorative element that helps him distinguish one hallway from another identical one. he dreams of a prophetized redemptor: someone who will come and take him, finally, freeing him from his infinite home. in the end, teseo turns to ariadna as they leave the labyrinth behind, pondering on the way he didn't resist his death at all. 

in jungian symbolism, the minotaur represents the repressed aspects of the human mind, the dark, unconscious and shameful facets that we often choose to ignore. if we are meant to face those gloomy corners in order to truly understand ourselves, the minotaur giving in to death - a starry death, honoring his name, made of light and multiplicity - is perhaps the image of a mind opening itself to expansion beyond the limits of our consciousness. the limits that exist in the way we define ourselves: in the minotaur's case, through its monstruosity, its alienation, the things that make it different. all this time perhaps he wasn't a prisoner by other people's hand, but he was through his own. the sweet relief of death is transformation. 

a choice to live somewhere else than the infinite, gray, repetitive house. a choice to surrender control on the way we understand ourselves. we all see different things when we look at the minotaur, just as everyone sees different things we they look at us, when they look at themselves. a choice to sacrifice understanding in order to allow peace in.