Symbolism Of The Paradox In Escape Myth

The net, or the net pattern, plays significant role in the memoir. The net symbolizes the power humans have and the paradox of the freedom and destruction. The net pattern shows the narrator’s state of mind throughout the memoir. The narrator experiences the trauma due to the paradox of freedom and destruction. The net symbolizes the paradox and it shows the horror and surprise which the narrator feels after encountering the paradox. Through the hospital window with black netting, the narrator was able to see the same, but different city. When he feels the uttermost freedom while he was walking the countryside, he also feels the uttermost destruction in his surroundings. If the narrator forgets about the paradox like other people do, he would
not be able to notice that the power humans created is causing such destruction in his surroundings. Because the narrator was able to notice the paradox and did not forget about it, when he was walking to the Somerleyton, he was able notice the past and the present of the Somerleyton:
Now there is nothing any more, nobody, no stationmaster in gleaming peaked cap, no servants, no coachman, not house guests, not shooting parties, neither gentlemen in indestructible tweeds nor ladies in stylish travelling clothes. I takes just one awful second, I often think, and an entire epoch passes. (31)
Many people do not travel to Somerleyton by trains but cars. However, unlike everyone else, the narrator travels to Somerleyton by the train where its station is devastated and there is no existing road that connects the station to the Somerleyton palace. Because of the war once fairy tale palace no longer exists but its decaying ruins stay in its place. Humans created the power such as the weapons they use in the war to destroy one another including irrelevant people and places. The net in this case is the war and the Somerleyton palace is caught inside the net unable to escape from the net. Even the humans created this destruction people forget the fact that they are the responsive ones for the decaying ruins and travels from place to place using cars instead of using trains like the narrator did. Humans have their freedom to create their power, but this power that they created only brings the destruction to other species and race. Humans who created the power are captured by their own power. Such paradox of creation and destruction make humans to forget about what they are doing to others by suppressing the truth.