Themes and Symbols in the Works of Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Key Works
- Ficciones
- El Aleph
- Universal History of Infamy
- The Book of Sand
Themes and Meanings in Borges’s Stories
The Theme of the Infinite
All reality dissolves in the presence of infinity. Borges recreates this concept through indefinite multiplication, endless roads (linear, cyclic, or labyrinthine), and the suspension of gestures. The projection of blurred horizons and unattainable goals contributes to the dreamlike atmosphere of his stories. One of his favorite topics is the secret meaning of the universe, manifested in the link between seemingly unrelated events, overlapping concentric circles, and images in ever-larger numbers, each contained within the other.
The most poetic and effective representation of the fusion of time and space is found in The Garden of Forking Paths. Borges envisioned “a labyrinth of labyrinths, a winding, ever-expanding maze to cover past and future and somehow involve the stars.” Another view of the infinite is the endless multiplication property, the structure of a story within a story, and the cyclical repetition of reflections.
Dreams, with their Chinese-box structure, play a crucial role in Borges’s work, blurring the boundaries of reality and creating an atmosphere of anxiety. They are visionary, labyrinthine, and cyclical, referencing infinity. As in “The Circular Ruins,” reality itself becomes a mere dream.
Time and Eternity
Past, present, and future are often intertwined in Borges’s stories. Is time an illusion? The concept of circular time is essential to his tales. Is eternity (or the abolition of time) a comfort or a conviction? Is the idea of infinity a solace or a nightmare?
For Borges, there is a haunting anxiety about the flow of time towards death. The everyday and the reiterated assurance of eternity offer comfort, for if now is equal to any time in the past, the flow of time is void.
The World as a Labyrinth
The world is fundamentally chaotic (“The world, unfortunately, is real”), and within it, man is lost like in a maze. Simultaneously, man creates mental labyrinths to explain the primary labyrinthine system. It is a maze of not knowing what’s real and what’s illusory, of not knowing how to choose the “forking paths.”
Human Identity
Borges explores the nature of personality, its consistency or inconsistency, its strange unfolding, and the possible identity of all men. Are we one or many? Are all men the same man?
The cancellation of personality is presented by Borges referring to one man as a symbol of all men. He insists on the idea that man is ignorant of his true self and likes to present the moment of revelation. Any destiny, however long and complicated, consists of a single moment: the moment when man knows who he is forever.
Personality is also linked to the randomness of existence. A trivial event can suddenly reveal the true face of our lives.
Man’s Destiny
Are we free? Are we playing a role written in advance?
Death
Death is the culmination of destinies. It brings either condemnation or relief.
The Game Between Author and Reader
Borges is known for his games between writer and reader. Some characters in his stories are readers whose interpretation of a text can save their lives.
Symbols in Borges’s Stories
- The Rose: Symbol of beauty and poetic creation.
- The Sea: Synonym of infinity, eternity, and death. Life and time are linked to the metaphor of a great river.
- The Night: Chaos, associated with poetic creation through its link to sleep.
- The Labyrinth: Gardens, corridors, and courtyards evoke the uneasy sense of the maze.
- Chess: Represents struggle and war.
- Libraries and Encyclopedias: Symbolize the ordered world of culture and civilization against barbarism and violence, as in “The Library of Babel.”
- The Mirror: Symbol of the inconsistency of the world.
- The Tiger: Violence and beauty.
- The Double: Also called “the other.”
- Blindness: Divine punishment.
- The Night and Sleep: The privileged territory of creation.
Famous Stories
Funes the Memoirist
The narrator discovers Funes, a monstrous deity and a prisoner. Prisoner because the accident that granted him his prodigious memory (a fall from a horse) has left him crippled and motionless. His monstrous nature comes from his infinite memory, which becomes a curse. Borges describes the workings of Funes’s memory and perception, his encounter with the infinite.
Funes’s crammed memory is similar to a total library or a book of infinite pages: everything is there, but it cannot produce information. Unable to process the information he accumulates, Funes cannot make sense of reality. The weight of infinite memory crushes him, and he dies young.
The Immortal
This story explores the implications of immortality for humans. Disenchanted, the immortal prefers to return to perishable reality and retrieve the illusion of time and space.
The Library of Babel
This story represents the infinite library, the depletion of literature. All books are there, those written and those yet to be written. Like immortality, which initially seems a precious gift, the experience of infinity causes profound boredom. The narrator discovers the futility of all human action since everything is already written. The library is a metaphor for the universe and literature.