The Candy House

The novel is named after the house in Hansel and Gretel and alludes to the concept of the Faustian bargain. Essentially, the Faustian bargain occurs when someone knowingly gives up their moral code for something like endless knowledge. A candy house is Faustian in that people are seduced away from their moral codes. People might have an inkling that they are being tricked, but the candy house represents a more subliminal seduction. The candy house in Hansel and Gretel has been constructed by an evil witch to entice children, and Hansel and Gretel are particularly vulnerable because they have been abandoned and are starving. In this novel, the candy house takes on multiple forms, making it an important motif throughout the novel. As a general concept, the central candy house is online technology, such as Bix Bouton’s Own Your Unconscious. People see this technology as revolutionary, something that will change humanity for good. But when people are easily seduced by new knowledge (in this case, access to a collective consciousness), they can unwittingly ignore the potential ramifications of such knowledge. Every Faustian bargain comes with a price, and in Own Your Unconscious, people give up privacy, individualism, imagination, and their own interpretations of their pasts to receive knowledge of themselves and others.