October 2022 Prep Docs (Adherennium)

Day 6 - General: Theme

The theme of the story is the Jungian process of individuation. Maurice has to deal with the problems that his fraught childhood have bestowed upon him. Specifically the fear that he might one day become his murdering father, and the inhibitions this creates with his interactions with potential life partners, must be recognised and overcome.

Philomena wishes Maurice to participate in the Magic Theatre. The theatre could be described as a training camp for eternity. It is a process more than a place, and designed to introduce the individual to the archetypes, pattern recognition, at the concept of a fluid reality that is malleable.

The resolution is brought about by manipulating Maurice until he faces a crisis similar in many respects to that which brought about his father's murderous actions. Maurice declines to violence, and in doing so realises that he and he alone chooses what he does and does not do. Further he realises that he will never become his father.