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zannes[Um...yeah. This means nothing. I could have tied it into Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, but will save that should I ever need to write an essay tying literature to television.]
I was driving to work, pondering the existential nature of Supernatural (as I so often do), when I recalled an earlier treatise I composed regarding the colors of the dresses used in the restaurant scene in “What is and What Should Never Be”.
If you’ve never read it, it was awesome.
I wondered if I could apply my mad skills to another such situation. That’s when I thought of “Dream a Little Dream of Me”, particularly the scene where Dean is wandering through the forest-covered halls of his motel during his dream state.
It brought to mind a verdant garden, and what garden was (supposedly) responsible for the birth of sin in our consciousness?
The Garden of Eden.
The choice to use this lush wallpaper as the scene for Dean’s dramatic self-realization (or own personal horror), hinted subtly at the concept of original sin, wherein a person is guilty not through his/her own acts, but through those of his/her parents – guilty through the very act of being born, of existing, and daring to take a breath. Just as humankind has no real culpability for their actions at the moment of birth, but are still tarred by the sins of their fathers (and mothers), Dean is also an innocent. He’s destined to eternal torment, not for his deeds, but for his choices - for the choices that others have branded into his psyche and convinced him were his own.
In this case, it was not only Dean’s original birth that cursed him, but also his rebirth – twice damned for the choices others made in his stead. The choice of his mother to marry a man named John Winchester, to resurrect her beloved through the sacrifice of her as yet unborn son(s). The choice of his father to marry a woman named Mary Campbell, to devote his life to finding her killer, and in sacrificing his own soul to bring his son back from the brink of death.
The silent forest walls constricting the corridors in Dean’s dream also tie into the Greco-Roman and medieval concept of the labyrinth. The labyrinths from both eras held secrets trapped in their centers. The Greco-Roman version focused on the monster in the middle – Theseus and the minotaur, even Odysseus’ trip to Hades. As Dean reaches the center of his motel labyrinth, what does he find? His demonic self, awaiting his arrival.
The medieval view takes the labyrinth, and twists it to serve as the prison for the foulest of creation’s beings. This is Dante’s conception of Hell, with Satan languishing in the center, forever gnawing on history’s three greatest betrayers. Originally, John was supposed to be at the center of Dean’s labyrinth, the only monster Dean could never escape and perhaps the harbinger of his greatest personal betrayal, not only in abandoning Dean through his own sacrificial death, but abandoning him with the onus of his final secret, that Dean’s brother Sam, for which Dean has literally sacrificed his life and future happiness, may turn evil and need to be slaughtered by Dean’s own hand. Instead (due to scheduling limitations), we have Dean as his own Lucifer; he is his own worst enemy, the epitome of his own failure, trapped in this never-ending spiraling labyrinth of self-sacrifice. Here in Dean's head, he is imprisoning the self that he cannot accept - the weak Dean, the failure, his father's automaton, the dark future that lies in wait. He will become his own betrayer, because he will eventually become the one thing he hates the most, like the things he hunts, like the thing that killed his mother and destroyed his family.
Oddly enough, Satan’s (Dean’s) prison – the central point of his personal labyrinth - is papered with an endless parade of birds in flight. How can such a hopeful image tie into this rather dismal projection of Dean’s future?
Simple. The center of his labyrinth is where Dean reaches his epiphany. He is not his father, and he doesn’t have to keep making his father’s mistakes. Much like the phoenix, Dean begins to emerge from the ashes of his own sense of self-worth, which had crumbled with John’s sacrifice at the beginning of season 2. He is more than merely his father’s son, he is more than his father’s shadow, he is more than Sam’s brother, and he is more than Sam’s executioner. He is more than the man that sold his soul to save his brother’s life.
He is Dean Winchester, and he isn’t going down without a fight.
I was driving to work, pondering the existential nature of Supernatural (as I so often do), when I recalled an earlier treatise I composed regarding the colors of the dresses used in the restaurant scene in “What is and What Should Never Be”.
If you’ve never read it, it was awesome.
I wondered if I could apply my mad skills to another such situation. That’s when I thought of “Dream a Little Dream of Me”, particularly the scene where Dean is wandering through the forest-covered halls of his motel during his dream state.
It brought to mind a verdant garden, and what garden was (supposedly) responsible for the birth of sin in our consciousness?
The Garden of Eden.
The choice to use this lush wallpaper as the scene for Dean’s dramatic self-realization (or own personal horror), hinted subtly at the concept of original sin, wherein a person is guilty not through his/her own acts, but through those of his/her parents – guilty through the very act of being born, of existing, and daring to take a breath. Just as humankind has no real culpability for their actions at the moment of birth, but are still tarred by the sins of their fathers (and mothers), Dean is also an innocent. He’s destined to eternal torment, not for his deeds, but for his choices - for the choices that others have branded into his psyche and convinced him were his own.
In this case, it was not only Dean’s original birth that cursed him, but also his rebirth – twice damned for the choices others made in his stead. The choice of his mother to marry a man named John Winchester, to resurrect her beloved through the sacrifice of her as yet unborn son(s). The choice of his father to marry a woman named Mary Campbell, to devote his life to finding her killer, and in sacrificing his own soul to bring his son back from the brink of death.
The silent forest walls constricting the corridors in Dean’s dream also tie into the Greco-Roman and medieval concept of the labyrinth. The labyrinths from both eras held secrets trapped in their centers. The Greco-Roman version focused on the monster in the middle – Theseus and the minotaur, even Odysseus’ trip to Hades. As Dean reaches the center of his motel labyrinth, what does he find? His demonic self, awaiting his arrival.
The medieval view takes the labyrinth, and twists it to serve as the prison for the foulest of creation’s beings. This is Dante’s conception of Hell, with Satan languishing in the center, forever gnawing on history’s three greatest betrayers. Originally, John was supposed to be at the center of Dean’s labyrinth, the only monster Dean could never escape and perhaps the harbinger of his greatest personal betrayal, not only in abandoning Dean through his own sacrificial death, but abandoning him with the onus of his final secret, that Dean’s brother Sam, for which Dean has literally sacrificed his life and future happiness, may turn evil and need to be slaughtered by Dean’s own hand. Instead (due to scheduling limitations), we have Dean as his own Lucifer; he is his own worst enemy, the epitome of his own failure, trapped in this never-ending spiraling labyrinth of self-sacrifice. Here in Dean's head, he is imprisoning the self that he cannot accept - the weak Dean, the failure, his father's automaton, the dark future that lies in wait. He will become his own betrayer, because he will eventually become the one thing he hates the most, like the things he hunts, like the thing that killed his mother and destroyed his family.
Oddly enough, Satan’s (Dean’s) prison – the central point of his personal labyrinth - is papered with an endless parade of birds in flight. How can such a hopeful image tie into this rather dismal projection of Dean’s future?
Simple. The center of his labyrinth is where Dean reaches his epiphany. He is not his father, and he doesn’t have to keep making his father’s mistakes. Much like the phoenix, Dean begins to emerge from the ashes of his own sense of self-worth, which had crumbled with John’s sacrifice at the beginning of season 2. He is more than merely his father’s son, he is more than his father’s shadow, he is more than Sam’s brother, and he is more than Sam’s executioner. He is more than the man that sold his soul to save his brother’s life.
He is Dean Winchester, and he isn’t going down without a fight.
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