Lost in the Funhouse

Ambrose appears in three stories and is the only recurring main character. Ambrose narrates “Ambrose His Mark,” and also becomes subject to the third-person narrator in “Water-Message” and “Lost In The Funhouse.” We meet Ambrose at different times in his life: as a baby, a fearful schoolboy member of the local Sphinxes, and as a romancing teen who gets lost in the metaphorical funhouse, in the titular story. That he shifts from narrator to narrated signals important gestures from Barth. The details we learn about Ambrose characterize our understanding of how Ambrose thinks of himself philosophically, but we learn less about how he felt during those experiences. Bart wants to circumnavigate this sort of dramatic development and exposition. Still, in Ambrose, we perceive attempts by Barth to weave a character through Lost in the Funhouse who can represent the very shift in narrative technique and satirizing that encompasses Barth’s self-reflexive goal. 

In Menelaiad–Barth’s fictional reimagining of the Odyssey’s Menelaus–we see Barth’s theme of merging the mythic and personal take new shape. Giving voice to mythological figures suggest the power of invention and language. In the Odyssey, one reason the Trojan War begins is because Paris steals away with Helen, Menelaus’ wife.