When Lalage explains to the reader how “that visit gave Poppy a way of imagining herself. Or maybe it’s only me who is given that, for my task is to find pattern and shape in her life” , she reveals a great deal of the way in which she creates an existence for Poppy. The visit she refers to is Poppy’s visit to Crete and her learning of the story of Adriadne:

She knew that Theseus, the son of the Athenian King Aegeus, was among the shipment of youths who’d arrived on Crete fo

The way in which Lalagy combines a number of discourses on the idea of psychiatry; her own views; the stories and words of friends; narration from various authors, can be seen to reflect the form and purpose of the book as a whole. Lalage speaks of Ursula Le Guin’s idea of the ‘father tongue’, “the language of thought that seeks objectivity” which creates gaps “between the subject of self and the object of the other” (pp. 150-151). It is a language that will not do for Lalage’s purposes.

Some topics in this essay:
Poppy Adriadne, Labyrinth Poppy’s, Naxos Adriadne, Lily Bernhardt’s, Le Guin, Thomas Bernhardt, King Aegeus, Lalage’s Adriadne, Poppy Lalage, Le Guin’s, multiple narration, poppy’s life, sense abandonment, adriadne myth, adriadne myth metaphor, novel regards, adriadne fell, allows lalage, myth adriadne, story poppy, creates existence poppy, fictional creation,