Barth is Ambrose Ambrose is Barth

In “Lost in the Funhouse” John Barth employs Ambrose, a thirteen-year old boy who is too lost in thought to live his life to the extent he wishes to, as a metaphor for Barth and the way writers are in general.  Barth juxtaposes Ambrose with his older brother Peter saying while peter is “a happy-go-lucky youngster,” (337) he doesn’t have “one-tenth the imagination [Ambrose] has.” (330) Barth’s overarching metaphor in the story is that the funhouse is thoughts.  Since Peter is the type of person who takes action and lives life without thinking too much, he is able to go through the funhouse with ease and make it out. He doesn’t let his thoughts get in the way and is able to make a move with Magda.  Ambrose, on the other hand, backs down from Magda  “moving clean ‘in the nick of time.’ [And] at this rate our hero, at this rate our protagonist, will remain in the funhouse forever.” (327) Barth uses the mirror room in the funhouse as a symbol for introspection, and “no matter how [Ambrose] stands, [his] head gets in the way.” (331)

Ambrose has a gift, but feels his gift is a curse. He is able to go places in his imagination nobody else can go, shown with the funhouse metaphor when he goes to places that “even the designer and operator had forgotten.” (330) He wishes he could stop thinking and live life, but he simply isn’t one of those people. He realizes he is destined to be the creator of the funhouse, even though he wishes he could simply enjoy it.  This realization symbolizes his realization that he is a writer, and it is no accident that Barth has him realize it just as his words are being written down secretly from behind the wall.

Barth has an obvious connection to Ambrose because he is writing a story where a boy realizes he is a writer. Furthermore, by breaking the fourth wall and giving the story multiple different endings, Barth gets in the way of his own story much like Ambrose gets in the way of his own life. Barth shows the reader evidence of this when after breaking the fourth wall and getting away from the plotline he says “we should be much farther along than we are” (327) There is a clear connection between the two of them, and it could be argued that Barth writes the story as a coming of age tale of himself.