Tunnel Ernesto Sabato

¶ … Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato is one of the most highly acclaimed books of the 20th century by Spanish author Ernesto Sabato. The novel is grounded in existentialism and the story revolves around Juan Pablo Castel, the protagonist who in a very dark moment of his life, decides to kill the woman he had loved so passionately. It is important to understand that this novel holds and expresses Castel's story wrapped in existentialism and therefore whatever we read appears to contain deep philosophical significance.

The story on the surface can be read simply as a psycho thriller where a man consumed by his own passion and in a severe fit of jealousy, murders the one woman in the entire world that understood him. But this is not the entire story and there are some important dark but psychologically and philosophically significant undertones.

Some messages therefore are to be read between the lines and throughout the story the reader wonders what drives a man to commit a crime so horrible and against someone he loves so much. There are other questions that arise why reading the novel especially concerning love. How does a power of positive turn into a force so negative? Why would someone sop deeply in love destroy the life of his beloved.

What is it about that love that drives man insane? These are some other similar questions bother the reader and for this reason, we can say that this novel is a highly thought provoking work with deep philosophical and psychological themes and meanings. The story begins with Castel in prison for the murder of Maria Iribarne, the woman he loved passionately. The narrative is not complex and author has used rather simple and direct techniques to convey the issues troubling the highly complex mind of the protagonist.

Since the protagonist and his thoughts are highly complex, the author has tried his best to keep the narrative simple in order not to confuse the reader too much. The confession of the crime appears very early in the novel when the " protagonist introduces himself in these words: "It should be sufficient to say that I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed Maria Iribarne." (Sabato p.09).

From this introduction of himself and the confession of his crime, the protagonist proceeds to tell us about the events that lead to the final tragic ending. Everything the protagonist narrates from there on should be read closely for there are numerous symbols interspersed throughout the novel that give clues to the inner mental and emotional anguish of the painter.

For example the very title, The Tunnel serves as an important symbol in the novel and Castel admits its significance when he says, "After all there was only one tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel in which I had spent my youth, my entire life." P. 97 Almost every event and every action occupies a pivotal place in the development of the story.

Some critics and authors have found this to be a weakness as Richardson (1997) says: "[the Tunnel is] devoid of what Jakobson would call "the dominant"; each event, she complains, is equally important as every other event.

"Until these things are judged and given each its appointed place in the whole scheme, they have no meaning in the world of art" she pronounced." However the design of the novel appears to give the readers no trouble at all, but it is important to bear this unique feature of the design in mind in order not to overlook any event.

The tunnel here represents the dark, closed life of the protagonist in which he survives without companions and without well wishers since everyone else seems to lives outside the tunnel and thus cannot understand the darkness and complexity that exists within the protagonist. This is a very important symbol and similar other signs appear in the novel foreshadowing the ending.

The tunnel by far is the most important clue for it explains why Juan Pablo Castel was unable to relate to others and why others found him such a complex character. It also helps to highlight the reasons why he fell so deeply in love with a married woman who was already involved with someone else. At some points, one wonders why Maria who was an intelligent and married woman decided to be a part of this highly destructive relationship.

The answer lies in man's inability to control his destiny and the destructive natural forces. The story and its tragic endings including the involvement of Maria is a passionate yet destructive relationship all indicate that man is incapable of controlling the circumstances in which he is thrown.

Secondly they also seem to reject the reasoning that man can alter his future and agree with the notion that 'whatever is meant to happen, will happen regardless of your wishes to the contrary' Maria and her involvement with the insane painter is also a tragic manifestation of this pessimistic view of life. Man is unable to do anything about the circumstances that he encounters and often becomes a victim of the Master Design or Plan. The natural forces then work in collaboration with man often for his own destruction.

In the case of Maria, this appears to be precisely true since the woman who reads Sartre and is capable of communicating with a closed soul like Castel, would have never involved herself with this man if she could control the forces that were working against her. Natural forces, destructive in nature, overpower her senses and cloud her ability to predict the consequences of Castel's consuming passion for her and the woman falls into the trap.