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.
LIGHT
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.
PERSUADE
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.
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