A “frame story” is a narrative technique whereby an introductory

A “frame story” is a narrative technique whereby an
introductory main story is composed, at least in part, for
the purpose of setting the stage for a fictional narrative
or organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a
story within a story. The frame story leads readers from
the first story into the smaller one within it.
“Lost in the Funhouse” is a part of a collection of stories
titled Lost in the Funhouse. (Ambrose appears in many
of these stories.) Barth not only provides us with a
“frame story” for the collection, but also frames for the
stories themselves. Barth’s “frames” are much, much
different, though, and we not only need to ask ourselves
what his “frame” means—we also need to decide which
story serves as the frame.
“Lost in the
Funhouse”
John Barth
John Barth
• born in 1930 in Maryland
• before studying literature at
Johns Hopkins, studied music
theory at Julliard
• nominated for National Book
Award for first novel, The
Floating Opera
• in 1960 publishes The SotWeed Factor, an 800-page
satirical look at Maryland’s
colonization, based loosely on
the life of Ebenezer Cooke
John Barth
• known for essays on literature,
including “The Literature of
Exhaustion” (1967) in which he
proposed that the conventional
modes of literature had all been
“used up”
• nominated for National Book
Award in 1968 for the linked
short story collection Lost in
the Funhouse
• has written numerous other
celebrated novels and stories;
continues to write today
Questions: Page 561
• What is important about the first line of the story?
• On what date does the “action” of the story take
place? Might we see this date as meaningful?
• What information is conveyed by the first authorial
intrusion? How might we see this information as
ironic?
• What is signified by the two words “Italics mine.”
And how are we supposed to read this line: “[Italics]
should be used sparingly.”
• What is meant by “at that awkward age”? What
evidence do we have that Ambrose is indeed “at that
awkward age”? Why is this important to know?
Questions: Pages 561-63
• How does Ambrose do in order to prevent his voice
from changing?
• Based on your reading, what in the story might cause
Ambrose to “get carried away”? And therefore, what
would you expect to happen when Ambrose
encounters this “cause”?
• Why is ironic about the information conveyed in the
second major authorial intrusion (page 562)?
• Near the top of page 563 there are two sentences
that end strangely. Use information that has been
conveyed previously to determine (a.) why the lines
read in this way and (b.) the purpose for having them
read in this way.
Questions: Pages 564-65
• Describe the game played by the kids in the car that
you encounter on page 564.
• In what ways does this game mirror the game of
reading fiction?
• Using the logic of the story, how might you explain
the placement and topic of the long authorial
intrusion on page 565?
• Look at the last line of this long passage (page 565):
“We haven’t even reached Ocean City yet: we will
never get out of the funhouse.” Who is the “we” of
this sentence? What is this line’s literal meaning and
function in the story? What might be this line’s selfreflexive meaning and function in the story?
Questions: Pages 565-66
• What is revealed (or “sort of” revealed) by the first line
of the final paragraph on page 565?
• Using the logic of the story, why is the topic of this
paragraph a children’s game?
• What is conveyed by this line, found near the top of
page 566: “Doubtless she remembered nothing of this
event; Ambrose on the other hand seemed unable to
forget the least detail of his life.” (In explaining this,
please use school-appropriate euphemistic language.)
• What is the purpose of describing a certain object just
after the line mentioned above? How does this
remembered object explain the placement and purpose
of the authorial intrusion in the middle of page 563?
Questions: 566-67
• What does the experience of reading this story resemble?
• What game is Ambrose playing while the rest of his carmates are playing theirs?
• On several levels, the line near the bottom of page 566,
where the narrator relates that Peter’s “imitation of a
child was not clever.” What is noteworthy about this line?
• The next few lines do interesting things. Which
“assertion” is being evaluated here? Why is it “not
effective”? Why does the sentence beginning with
“Assertions” end in the way it does?
• What is the purpose of the last seven lines in the
paragraph ending “lose their way”? What literary term
might we use to describe what we are encountering here?
Questions: Pages 567-68
• How does Uncle Karl’s warning about the boardwalk
relate in some way to another piece of information from
that paragraph?
• What happens to those who bathe in the surf?
• How might we see this image as related to the act of
reading fiction? Or, perhaps, of interpreting fiction?
• Based on the long paragraph beginning “Under the
boardwalk,” what goes on “under the boardwalk”?
• Taking into consideration Ambrose’s desires along with
the topic in question in the “boardwalk” paragraph, what
is the next paragraph, the one beginning “Magda’s
teeth,” about? When are these events taking place?
Where is Ambrose at this point in the story?
Questions: Pages 568-70
• On page 569, we are told that “[t]he diving would make a
suitable literary symbol.” How might we see this
description of diving as a “suitable symbol” of the story?
• On page 570: “Not act, be.” If we use the preceding
paragraph for context, how might we explain this line?
• Right after the cryptic line mentioned above we have a
line of dialogue spoken by Ambrose. What is the “surface
meaning” of this line? What is the “hidden message” that
he hopes Magda will interpret?
• Since “there’s no point in going farther,” what would all
of this mean if we stopped right here? What is the story
about at this point?
Questions: Pages 570-71
• In the long paragraph on page 570, after asserting that
“they haven’t even come to the funhouse yet,” Ambrose
is described as “off the track, in some new or old part of
the place that’s not supposed to be used.” Is not this
“place” the funhouse? If so, how is he not there yet and
at the same time there?
• What is one of the differences between Ambrose and
Peter, revealed on page 570?
• To what is the “odd detachment” mentioned on 571
referring? How does the description of this feeling relate
to the “digger machines” that immediately follow?
• On 571, Ambrose’s father says, “It is perfectly normal.
We have all been through it. It will not last forever.” In
how many different ways might we read this line?
Questions: Pages 571-72
• How might we interpret the following line: “You think
you’re yourself, but there are other persons in you.”
• What exactly is the problem one encounters when looking
into the funhouse mirror? What is the thing “you really
wanted to see”?
• At the bottom of page 571, once again we see that
Ambrose is lost in the funhouse, even though we readers
have not witnessed his entrance into that space. Which of
the previous authorial intrusions addresses this
predicament?
• Why would an author “make use” of the described images
of sailors and the submarine skipper that we encounter
on page 572? What is it about these descriptions that
makes them a fit for fiction?
Questions: Pages 572-74
• In the middle of page 572, Fat May laughs “as if she just got
the joke.” What is the joke? Who tells it? How is it meant to
be funny? Does Ambrose “get” the joke?
• Where is Ambrose in this passage? What is he doing? Why
does he drop the flashlight?
• On page 573, how might we describe the possible endings as
put forth in the story?
• What significance might we attach to the “small old man”
resembling Ambrose’s ancestors?
• Read the paragraph at the bottom of 573. Does this advice
apply more to Ambrose or to us, the readers?
• What is the main idea of the first paragraph on page 574?
• How is Ambrose’s feeling during baptism similar to a
previous encounter he has had?
Questions: Pages 574-77
• What, according to the text, is the “whole point” of the
funhouse? The “whole point” of Ocean City? (The “whole
point” of fiction?)
• Using the logic of the story as your guide, why does the
story move, on page 575, from Ambrose’s finding of the coin
to his being lost in the funhouse?
• Read the final paragraph on page 575. How do you account
for its contradictions? Why is “laughing easily” italicized?
What might we infer about the dialogue based on its final
sentence?
• “Is there anything more tiresome, in fiction, than the
problems of sensitive adolescents?”
• “Violent yawns as they approached the mouth.”
• What happens as soon as Ambrose steps into the “mouth”?
Questions: Pages 577-79
• Based on the passage on page 577 that begins with “A dim
hall then,” how might we describe Ambrose’s approach to
guiding Magda through the funhouse? What is her response?
• When Magda runs off into the maze with Peter, what is
Ambrose’s response?
• What are the “two important things” that happen while
Ambrose is in the maze?
• What is suggested by this line from page 579: “[He] strayed
into the pass wherein he lingers yet.”
• Who is familiar with Gustav Freitag?
• Exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, dénouement?
Which earlier authorial intrusion explained similar fictional
elements?
• “This can’t go on much longer; it can go on forever.”
Questions: Pages 577-79
• Does Ambrose really die of starvation while lost in the
funhouse? What is the purpose of this passage that runs from
the bottom of page 579 to the middle of page 580?
• As Ambrose imagines future funhouses, there is a great deal
of emphasis placed on his capacity for imagining. Why is the
story and Ambrose so preoccupied with this quality of his?
• What are the “two important things” that happen while
Ambrose is in the maze?
• What is suggested by the story’s final paragraph? Which of
the story’s main conflicts is featured within these final
lines?
• Does Ambrose make it out of the funhouse?
“Freitag’s Triangle”: Page 579
B
C
B
A
C
A
D
Final Questions, Part One:
• Metafictive moments aside, what is the plot of this
story? What is happening on a literal level?
• What is gained by selecting a young boy as the story’s
main character, its point of view?
• What is important about the setting of the story? Its
temporal location? Its physical location?
• Again, metafictive moments aside, what aspects of
the story seem “true” on a literal level? The
descriptive passages? The character relationships? The
character’s decisions and motivations? Anything?
• What is odd about the way Ambrose invites Magda to
accompany him through the funhouse? How do you
account for this?
Final Questions, Part Two:
• Do the elements of the story reflect the comments about
elements of fiction interspersed throughout? Why or why not?
• Metaphorically, what is the funhouse? How does this
metaphor operate? What is the significance of Ambrose
becoming “lost” in this funhouse?
• What is gained and what is lost in taking such an approach to
fiction? What is your response to being addressed in two
different ways by the story?
• This narrator is very “intrusive.” Is there such thing as a
“non-intrusive narrator”?
• The etymology of the main character’s name is interesting.
“Ambrose” is derived from “immortal” (think “ambrosia”)
while “Mensch” is derived from “person, man.” In your
opinion, does this contribute any additional meaning to the
story?
“The Funhouse as Fiction”
Many of you have suggested that the “funhouse” can be interpreted as
“fiction.” That seems plausible, but one cannot stop there. Based on such lines
as the following, what is the story suggesting about some aspect of fiction?
• For whom is the funhouse fun? (561)
• The function of the beginning of a story is to introduce the principal
characters, establish their initial relationships, set the scene for the main
action, expose the background of the situation if necessary. plant motifs and
foreshadowings where appropriate, and initiate the first complication or
whatever of the “rising action.” Actually, if one imagines a story called “The
Funhouse,” or “Lost in the Funhouse,” the details of the drive to Ocean City
don’t seem especially relevant. The beginning should recount the events
between Ambrose’s first sight of the funhouse early in the afternoon and his
entering it with Magda and Peter in the evening. The middle would narrate all
relevant events from the time he goes in to the time he loses his way; middles
have the double and contradictory function of delaying the climax while at the
same time preparing the reader for it and fetching him to it. Then the ending
would tell what Ambrose does while he’s lost, how he finally finds his way out,
and what everybody makes of the experience. So far there’s been no real
dialogue, very little sensory detail, and nothing in the way of a theme. And a
long time has gone by already without anything happening; it makes a person
wonder. We haven’t even reached Ocean City yet: we will never get out of the
funhouse. (565)
“The Funhouse as Fiction”
• At this rate our hero, at this rate our protagonist will remain in the funhouse
forever … We should be much farther along than we are; something has gone
wrong; not much of the preliminary rambling seems relevant. Yet everyone begins
in the same place; how is it that most go along without difficulty but a few lose
their way? (566-67)
• What is the story’s theme? (567)
• The diving would be a suitable literary symbol … [the dive] was over in two
seconds, after all that wait. (569)
• There’s no point in going farther; this isn’t getting anybody anywhere; they
haven’t even come to the funhouse yet. (570)
• I’ll never be an author. It’s been forever already, everybody’s gone home. (572)
• One possible ending would be to have Ambrose come across another lost person
in the dark. (573)
• What a sentence, everything was wrong from the outset. (574)
• This can’t go on much longer; it can go on forever. (579)
• He wishes he had never entered the funhouse. But he has. Then he wishes he
were dead. But he’s not. Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be
their secret operator — though he would rather be among the lovers for whom
funhouses are designed. (581)