The Mystery of the Caves

The poem “The Mystery of the Caves” incorporates the story of a young speaker reading about a boy who was “lost wandering the labyrinths of caverns”. The poem makes good use of images and symbols to join the predicament of the lost boy, to the actual matters that the young speaker. Overall the boy in the story offers the speaker a sense of comfort as he’s suffering through the turbulent lifestyle of his parent’s dysfunctional marriage. The young speaker has the ability to connect to the story, to the point where the speaker and the character in his text become one and the same entity.

When the speaker describes the boy in the book as being “lost” in “labyrinths and caverns”, he indirectly introduces the state of his own affairs. These images serve to demonstrate the inner turmoil that he comes across later on in the poem. Floating toward the “light”(line 6)  symbolizes the peace the speaker dreams of having. Somersaulting back into the “black river”(line 8) however, represents the cyclical chain of challenges he encounters at home. The poem elaborates on the speaker’s difficulties in the subsequent quatrains, as he describes his mother leaving his father. The poet writes “the boy found it impossible to see, which passage lead to safety” (lines 15-16). This imagery serves as the metaphor for the situation that the speaker is in. Trapped, between the crises of his parents’ relationship, he finds it tough to find a path of clarity, and a solid outlet to which he could resort to. The boy’s “last match”(line 18) in turn becomes the speakers means of a final spark, or chance at an escape from suffering. The sixth quatrain symbolizes the toll the speaker’s parents’ physical abuse upon another, has in turn on him. Again, the use of imagery, by using the boy’s story displays the emotions that the speaker feels. Incapable to “breathe”(line 23) and thinking he wanted “help” (line 24), symbolizes the speaker’s own screams for help, as he deals with the suffocating situation at home.

The last two quatrains could also argue that the speaker has matured, and is recollecting his past memories through the boy. Although he cannot recall the whole tale, he worries that the boy is “still searching below the earth”(line 35). This imagery symbolizes the idea that even though he’s matured, the speaker is still trying to find a place of peace, and genuine happiness. The ”volumes of water” and “stone” (line 37-38) are just mere obstacles, and hardships that he must overcome. Crying his name among “blind fish” (line 39), symbolizes a world that’s at chaos, and not listening to him, just like his parents. The final line reaffirms that what the speaker is yearning for the most is a place of stability and harmony, “home”. Thus the labyrinth of caves is overall a symbolism for the struggles which center around the speaker’s family, and lead him on a pursuit of a true “home”.