Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison
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Jeff Parish
Jeff Parish is a college English instructor in Texas. He has spent more than a decade in education with prior experience in journalism and corporate communication. His research focuses on popular culture, including graphic novels, TV shows, movies, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and the intersection of real-world politics with speculative fiction.
Abstract
US incarceration rates far outstrip the rest of the world, a tradition of imprisonment that can be seen in American works ranging from classics such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” to the epic fantasy The Death Gate Cycle. This septology by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman presents a world that has been split by a war between two powerful wizard races into its elemental components: water, air, fire, and stone. Not content with winning the war, Sartan wizards created a fifth world known as the Labyrinth to serve as a prison for the defeated Patryn. What started as a rehabilitation project twisted itself into a sentient, sadistic combination of jail and jailer that became its own reason for existence. Of course, art often imitates life, which can perhaps best be seen in Texas, which spends billions each year to incarcerate more people than any other state. The homepage of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website proudly proclaims that its mission is “to provide public safety, promote positive change in offender behavior, reintegrate offenders into society, and assist victims of crime.” However, with an incarceration rate that far outstrips any democracy on the planet, the Lone Star State seems more concerned with having people in jail. Through a close reading of Into the Labyrinth, the sixth book of The Death Gate Cycle, and prison statistics for Texas, this chapter argues that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has become its own Labyrinth, where the prison system exists as a reason in and of itself.
Abstract
US incarceration rates far outstrip the rest of the world, a tradition of imprisonment that can be seen in American works ranging from classics such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” to the epic fantasy The Death Gate Cycle. This septology by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman presents a world that has been split by a war between two powerful wizard races into its elemental components: water, air, fire, and stone. Not content with winning the war, Sartan wizards created a fifth world known as the Labyrinth to serve as a prison for the defeated Patryn. What started as a rehabilitation project twisted itself into a sentient, sadistic combination of jail and jailer that became its own reason for existence. Of course, art often imitates life, which can perhaps best be seen in Texas, which spends billions each year to incarcerate more people than any other state. The homepage of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website proudly proclaims that its mission is “to provide public safety, promote positive change in offender behavior, reintegrate offenders into society, and assist victims of crime.” However, with an incarceration rate that far outstrips any democracy on the planet, the Lone Star State seems more concerned with having people in jail. Through a close reading of Into the Labyrinth, the sixth book of The Death Gate Cycle, and prison statistics for Texas, this chapter argues that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has become its own Labyrinth, where the prison system exists as a reason in and of itself.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
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Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
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Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
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Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
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Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
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Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Acknowledgments 5
- Table of Contents 7
- Confinement Studies in American Popular Culture 1
-
Part I: Confinement Narratives on the Screen
-
Cinema and TV Series
- The Individual vs. the Institution: Narratives of Confinement in New Hollywood Cinema 15
- Trapped in Bluebeard’s Castle: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a Self-Contradictory Story of Empowerment and Imprisonment 31
- (Dis)ableing the Confinement: Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water and Mark Medoff’s Children of a Lesser God 47
- Transformative Power of Confinement and Subversion of Identity in The Experiment (2010) 63
- “Where the City Started and the Suburbs Ended”: The (Sub)urban Confinement of Post-Industrial America in David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows 87
- Never Let Me Go: Home, Family, and Confinement in Umma 103
- Confinement and Consciousness: Exploring the ‘ Nomadic Consciousness’ in Maid 117
-
Documentaries
- Incarceration Documentaries after the Curious Eclipse of Prison Ethnography 133
- Dream in Place: Understanding Confinement through the Tactics of Fiction in Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack 151
-
Part II: Confinement Narratives from/about American Prisons
- Claudia Jones and Angela Davis: Literature in Confinement 171
- Confined to the Margins: Necropolitics, American Identity, and Racial Separation in Assata by Assata Shakur 185
- Into the Lone Star Labyrinth: Texas Prison System Reflects The Death Gate Cycle Prison 201
- Our Time on the Rock: Narrating Voluntary Confinement in Tommy Orange’s There There 217
- “Have You Ever Seen a More Focused Killing Machine?” The Extreme Spectacle of Carceral Punishment in Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars 235
-
Part III: Confinement Narratives within Performances
- Taylor Swift’s American Retreat: Covid, Cardigans, and Confinement in folklore 253
- In The Devil's Grip: Competing Narratives of Confinement in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X Opera 269
- Index
