The lively image is an exploration of two human obsessions: the need for self-understanding and the need to explain and interpret human experience. These needs meet and intertwine int he creation of myths. Professor Hughes retells four crucial myths, those of Narcissus, Orpheus, Dionysos, and the Christ of St. Matthew’s Gospel. He then considers their expression in the work of several 19th and 20th century authors, including Hawthorne, Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, Agatha Christie, James Dickey, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Brautigan, and Flannery O’Connor. The path indicated is a spiral, from the self to the world and back again — hopefully wiser — to the self.