'Bontella's' literary and allegorical meanings

By Alex P. Vidal

SAN FRANCISCO, California -- Reading Bontella reminds us of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Bontella both has literally and allegorical meanings. In allegorical writing characters, actions and setting are used as symbols and they should be interpreted to make the allegorical meaning.
In Bontella, author Greg Bonfa has given a description of the journey of Theerus and Casmers into a mysterious place which he described as "the beautiful and mystical forest of Shea to find three divine gifts."
Both boys realized the world of creatures and powerful enemies they encountered during the journey is neither as hospitable nor as peaceful as they had hoped even if they were filled with hope and confidence when they started to embark on the perilous exploration believing that their divine mission would be an easy sojourn to the charm of their dream girls.
It has parallelism in Plato’s cave which is very dark because there is little light inside it and hardly seen the objects. Some chained people are seen inside on their necks as well as feet, and they cannot move comfortably. Similarly, there is also another world out of the cave world, but between these two worlds, a wall is raised. On the wall, many other people move with different things on their hands and their shadows fall in the cave world. The people inside the cave cannot raise their head completely so that they can only see the shadows like illusion, which they believe, as real but it is just their illusion.
Their adventure became legend to generations of other Bontellions in the future after successfully ditching some menacing challenges and spellbinding places that pushed their heart and soul to the limits.
Like the cave allegory, there is light and everything is clearly visible in the outer world. One of the people, when released from the cave world and taken to the outer world, cannot see anything at first because his eyes dazzle in the light. But if he stays in the outer world, slowly and gradually he begins to identify everything and he becomes to realize that the outer world is the real world and the cave world is the unreal world.
The chained person becomes gratified with himself and remembers the other people in the cave and gives pity and sympathy over the cave people lost in darkness. He thinks it is better to be the slave in the outer world rather than being the king inside the cave and even though he does not want to go back to the cave world, his eyes dazzle more if he is taken back to the cave world, and he can’t count anything inside darkness. If he attempts to persuade the people inside the cave saying that the outer world is the real world, and the cave world is unreal, his ignorant friends kill him.
In Bontella, the dog that the Fasmer had dealt with exhorts Villagers of Bontella to “listen to words from beyond, for they shall set you upon a journey. We have come to tell of three idols. God, in His saving grace, placed three idols in the world.”
Idols of Wisdom, of Strength, and of Power, that were waiting to be discovered somewhere in the world.