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Reinventing The Library By Umberto Eco: Chapter Analysis

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Libraries have always been considered a place where people can Borrow books and read them. But, In The Name of the Rose book, the writer, Umberto Eco, was able to view the Benedictine Library as something more than just a normal library. The Benedictine Library was seen in the novel as the meeting point of many cultures. Eco put a great deal to the library as being mysterious and has a sense of gothic inside it. This sense of gothic was done greatly by the writer as he paid great attention to the dark ages which was the time when the novel was written. According to The New York Times’ article entitled “Reinventing the Library”, libraries are considered to be “the clinic of the soul”. The library is the seen as the main setting …show more content…

This is seen in how the library is described as a secret labyrinth or maze that nobody knows the paths inside it except the librarian and his assistant. This is also seen in how the abbott had forbidden anyone to enter the library making the people falsely believe that whoever enters the library will not be able to come out of it alive. This is seen when the abbott told William “the library defends itself, immeasurable as the truth it houses, deceitful as the falsehood it preserves” (Day1: p.38). The sense of gothic in the library was created by the monks’ belief that the library was the place for many social elements such as when Nicolas, who is a glazier, said to William,
“…rumours about a monk who decided to venture into the library during the night, to look for something Malachi had refused to give him, and he saw serpents, headless men, and men with two heads. He was nearly crazy when he emerged from the labyrinth…” (Day1: p.89)
This quotation shows how the abbott was able to use the sense of gothic around the library in order to make the monks believe that the library contains supernatural elements inside it. To sum up, Eco was able to show the Benedictine library in an artistic way as being something that should be both glorified and feared. In short, The Name of The Rose is a novel that Eco used in order to show Benedictine

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