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Borges' Identity Crisis: An investigation of themes used in his short stories

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 Culture and Identity in Latin America Mahdia
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Borges' Identity Crisis: An investigation of themes used in

his short stories

Jorge Luis Borges has left this world thousands of complicated puzzles in the form of
short stories. The author wrote during most of the twentieth century but his content
preserved metaphysical arguments. His stories questioned the concept of identity, time
and space through history, human mind and behaviour. This paper will discuss how
Borges viewed the concept of identity through stories with religious and magical
realism themes. The paper will first create a short profile on Borges and his life that
have influenced the content of his writing. It will then discuss the style his of writing
that comprised of parables and symbolism, along with notable influences to the themes
he uses. In two sections, the paper will then move on to analyse these themes of his
short stories that project his interpretation of identity- one focusing on religion and the
other on magic realism. The paper concludes with an observation of Borges’
understanding of his own identity in relation to the stories discussed.

Profile of His Life and Influences

Born in 1899 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jorge L. Borges’ upbringing was considerably
inclusive of people and events that influenced his literary career. His father, Jorge
Guillermo Borges Haslam, was a lawyer and psychology professor (Woodall, 1996);
mother, Leonor Acevedo Suarez, presented the value of family, religion and culture;
paternal grandmother, Francis Haslam, who was protestant and would read English
novels to young Borges (Woodall, 1996). Growing up, he enjoyed spending time with his
sister, Norah, acting out stories from books and explored gardens and his father’s
labyrinthine library. As his mother notes in 1964, Borges was fascinated by tigers,
spending hours in the zoo observing their movements and colour and drawing them
(Woodall, 1996). Labyrinths, gardens and tigers are frequently observed in stories by
Borges such as ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’ and ‘The Writings of the God’. As Senior
Borges was against state-run enterprises, young Borges started school at the age of 9,
but he was ahead of his fellow classmates in his studies and was often bullied (Woodall,

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1996). His family moved to Geneva in 1914 where he completed high school and
university in addition to learning Latin, French and German. In College, Borges was
drawn to Symbolist literature and was fascinated by works of Schopenhauer and Walt
Witman. After moving to Spain, Borges joined a group of idealists known as ‘Ultraists’
who opened the gates of idealist story plots evident in his stories (Balderston, et al.,
n.d.). In an article for a newspaper, ‘Nosotros’, Borges details the principles of Ultraism .
Moving back to Buenos Aires in 1921, Borges becomes friends with poet Macedonio
Fernandez who further encourages the beliefs of Schopenhauer, Berkeley and Hume.
From this point on, Borges published many poems and stories and founded multiple
literary magazines. He began writing, what came to be later known as ‘magical realism’
(realistic storyline with elements of improbability), stories that later became the root of
his fame as a writer. For nine years from 1938, Borges worked as a librarian in Buenos
Aires Library, where he spent majority of his work hours reading more literature . In the
same year, he had a near death experience suffering from septicaemia due to an
infection on his forehead that resulted in hallucinations (Balderston, et al., n.d.). Instead
of deteriorating in creativity, the incident spurred some of his greatest stories including
‘El Sur’ [The South] and ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’. In ‘El Sur’, the protagonist suffers
from the same decease Borges had suffered from. The story of ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis
Tertius’ is about the discovery of an ‘idealistic’ world where, the people believe nothing
is real unless they perceive of it and that nothing is independent of the mind. It can be
assumed that this story resembles his time with the idealist groups where they
discussed concept of idealism and established guidelines for it. All these aspects in his
life played a major role in shaping the stories Borges wrote. Whether it was the stories
from his grandmother (religion or war), or the creative adventures with his sister, or
the fascination for idealism and authors such as Berkeley, Borges’ stories, represented
his ‘dream world’ merging paradoxical events with real ones.

Style in Borges’ writings

As the plots of Borges’ stories were of metaphysical substance, parabolic and symbolic
styles were often evident. Although he states that he is not a “preacher of parables”,

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many of his stories demonstrate otherwise. A parabolic text is characterised by its

ability to distract the reader with absurd plotline leaving him with endless thoughts on
the exact purpose of the story (Lydenberg, 1979). A biblical parable further adds the use
of paradoxes and structural reversals. Borges, like biblical parables, stages reversals
where epistemology trumps moral conflicts, leaving readers to distinguish between
dream and reality (Lydenberg, 1979). They both present divine visions via the medium
of exchange being simple human language. ‘The Zahir’ portrays such characteristics.
The story is about the protagonist’s growing obsession with a coin, the Zahir, he
received as change for a drink. He begins to characterise the power of this coin in a way
similar to that of Christ’s parables. Although the coin seems like a small, hard and shiny
object, it has the power effect anyone in possession of it can never forget it. Similarly,
the parables of Christ are that the secret of God’s kingdom are understood by a few
people while the rest see them as parables. Gradually, his obsession with the coin makes
him question the line differentiating dream from reality as he fears their roles being
reversed. Like many of his other stories, this one ends almost abruptly, with the
protagonist wondering if he could wear out the power of the Zahir by indefinitely
thinking about it over and over. The reader is left with the same obsession as the
protagonist in the story as they both fall into a cycle of uncertainty. Lydenberg (1979)
states "keep the reader . . . in a constant state of confusion which opens up new ways of
perceiving both the word and the world in their infinite complexity and
inexhaustibility". As the characters in his stories struggle in their search of meaning to
their life, the Borges’ readers are expected to struggle in finding the messages in these
parables. These patterns of reversals accumulate into patterns of infinite regression
resulting in Borges’ iconic pattern of labyrinth.

The labyrinth is an important form of symbolism that embodies Borges’ writing style .
Symbolism is evident in other methods like in numbers and colours but the labyrinth
plays a core role. A labyrinth is a complicated geometrical structure where it is easy to
get lost and difficult to find an exit. Borges either refers to labyrinths in his stories as an
actual entity or as objects that can be described to have a labyrinth-like structure
(Bowman, 1987). While Borges himself believes that the labyrinth is “one of the oldest

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and mysterious illustrations of the inner life of man" (Murillo 1969 cited in Bowman
1987), the relationship of man and universe as a labyrinthine observation has been a
common analysis among critics. One critic, Ernest E. Redekop, believes that the
labyrinth encompasses the human fear and confusion of the uncountable forms of time
and space in Borges’ stories (Redekop, 1980). He refers to the story ‘The Immortals’ as
an example. In this story, the City of Immortals represents a state of confusion as it
contains numerous intertwining mazes. This symbolizes the choices men must make
throughout his life (Redekop, 1980). In another story, ‘The House of Asterion’, Redekop
believes a ‘Borgesian labyrinth’ is noticeable. He observes that "Not only is this story
about a prisoner within a labyrinth; the story itself is a labyrinth for the reader, who has
to penetrate to the identity of the prisoner and thus to the meaning of the story"
(Redekop, 1980). Thus, the labyrinth is not only in the plot but critics claim that Borges’
writings themselves are labyrinths. His meta-physical arguments on identity are
presented with the use of parabolic and labyrinthine style.

Influences to themes in Borges’ writings

As this paper discusses the religious and magic realism themes of Borges’ writing, these
themes were effectively influenced by the works of Schopenhauer and Berkeley, which
was introduced to Borges by Macedonio Fernandez. Macedonio Fernandez encouraged
the ideas of metaphysical concepts. Metaphysical philosophy works with abstract
concepts of identity, time and space. Borges’s stories depicted his fascination for the
nature of time and influences on identity. Fernandez was the key to concepts and
themes that made Borges’ stories famous. Borges referred to Fernandez as a
metaphysical humourist. Fernandez was known for introducing uncertainty into reality
and was obsessed with the idea of nothingness. To him, the contrasts between reality
and imaginary are no more than life and death (Ferrua, 1976). Such traits are seen in
Borges’ writing with themes of magic realism, questions of identity and existentialism .
Through the story of ‘Aleph’, Mary Mcbride observes that existentialism is a theme
habitually employed. She believes Borges illustrates the assumption that the only
meaning for human existence is created through that individual’s experience and that

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existence has no other significance (McBride, 1977). Among other things, Borges
frequents the use of religious and magic realism to question the abstract concept of
identity.

Schopenhauer’s works influenced Borges’ theme of identity by questioning ones destiny.

Schopenhauer apprehended that every man's destiny is his own choosing even when it
seems accidental or providential. While he was against the idea of the will because it
results in unhappiness, Borges sees the notion of will as destiny (Wheelock, 1975).
‘Guayaquil’, is one of many stories that follow this concept. In the story two intellectuals,
a veteran on South American history and Zimmerman who is hardly qualified, duel
against each other for the opportunity to edit a newly discovered historical letter.
Eventually, the veteran is defeated by Zimmerman. Even though he was the ideal
candidate for this job, it is suggested that Zimmerman won because he wills it and that it
was his destiny to take the job (Wheelock, 1975). This is a pattern of Borges’ use of
Schopenhauer’s idea that every man wills his fate. To Borges, chance, destiny and will
are the same thing. Zimmerman also mentions that the veteran lost because he, too,
secretly willed to lose. As Wheelock (1975) states, Borges believes “will puts order into
chaos”.

One of the most influential philosophers for Borges’ theme is George Berkeley . The
common perception of reality is that there is an independent existence of material
objects from the mind, whereas Berkeleyan idealism proposes that the only reality is
from a mental projection (Irby, 1971). To him the world is built by God’s infinite mind,
containing his creation of the finite minds, and the ideas these minds possess or
experience (Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 1710,
quoted in Bullock and Trombley 1999, 412). Borges applies Berkeleyan idealism in
order to break down reality, the balance of space and personal identity into a flow of
perceptions. One of the best stories with Berkleyan idealism is ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis
Tertius’. In the back of an encyclopaedia, the narrator finds a special chapter on the
history of Tlon. Tlon is an entirely idealistic utopian world where reality is a projection
of the mind. There is no such thing as a substance or object that is independent of the

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mind and that everything is an idea. An example of this is the language of Tlon which
excludes all nouns, and that all substances that are perceived by the mind are described
using adjectives (qualities) or verbs (acts or processes). The news of Tlon slowly
spreads in Uqbar, which represents the current world. Features of Tlon are increasingly
meddling into Uqbar, as people are intrigued by an orderly, man-made universe of the
mind to displace present reality. One hundred years later, Uqbar has completely
absorbed the utopian world of Tlon and has become Orbis Tertius. For writers like
Borges, Berkeleyan idealism is a goldmine theme for literature because it allows one to
invent an entirely new world from the mind, as elements of the real world are useless
because they are exhausted and leave no room for imagination (Bowman, 1987).

Understanding Identity- Stories of religious themes

The theme of Borges’ writings, time and again, revolves around the religious
insinuations of the search for one’s identity. Borges was no stranger to religious
literature, starting with stories from his Protestant grandmother and attending school
with Jewish children (Bowman, 1987) to religious scriptures from the Bible. Certain
concepts and modes of expression from the Bible, mainly from the section ‘The Book of
Job’, along with Kabbalistic traits have immensely weight in into Borges’ writing as
discussed below.

Much of Borges’ literature is built on ‘The Book of Job’. It is one of his beloved books
which he claims to be a classic because of its promise of long immortality [prometen
una larga inmortalidad] (Aizenberg, 1984). This is a story of a man, Job, from the Land
of Uz who fears God and sincerely worshiped Him. Yet, God allows tragedies to
transpire in Job’s life and health which upsets Job and he demands for an answer from
Him. Aizenberg (1984) states, that God responds to Job was “[he] is ignorant of the
divine principles that govern the world and therefore cannot expect a justification for
suffering.” The common interpretation of the moral of this story is to have strong faith
when challenged by hardship, but to Borges, the core concept of the story is that the
world is chaotic and cannot be understood by the use of any human law (Barrenechea,
1965). The author of the Book of Job suggests problems through fantasies and ideas

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through suggestive symbols, a method Borges applies in his writings as analysed in

stories further down. Just like how Job had to accept the answers of God, so does the
reader of Borges stories with absurd endings.

‘Funes the Memorious’ and ‘The Library of Babel’ are two stories by the Argentinian
writer which has religious implications when questioning one’s identity. Teenager
Ireneo Funes is the protagonist of the story ‘Funes the Memorious’, who has acquired a
superhuman mind resulting from an accident that allows him to remember absolutely
everything of every moment. However, while his mind imprints these images of his
surrounding, it fails to analyse them. ‘The library of Babel’ is a story about a library that
is universe-like, comprising of countless books written in every possible ordering of just
25 characters (Borges, 1941). As one may expect, majority of the books make no sense
considering they follow a certain pattern of those 25 letters that would result in
nonsense. The narrator suggests that there is a possibility that the library contains
every possible book that is intelligible. This also means the library may have books
translated in all languages. However, all these books are randomly placed in this vast
library, the books have no use to the reader. Some of the librarians believe there is a
book, somewhere in the library, that is the map of all the contents in this library and
that a man has found and read it. Thus they spend much of their time looking for him
inside the library.

The plot of both these stories has one strong aspect in common, and that is the laws of
divinity cannot be understood by human beings. Fune harbours the divine power of
remembering anything and everything he sees. With it, he attempts to learn Latin,
which is an example of a person’s need to find meaning in his life. Yet his human body is
not capable of utilizing this power (Flynn, 2009) because the power quickly consumes
all of his life when he grows into an old man within a night fall. ‘The Library of Babel’, is
a labyrinthine plot that represents the universe where the quest for ‘the book’ means
finding God which ultimately cannot be achieved. What is more frustrating is that the
library holds knowledge of infinite proportions but with no scope to find solutions
(Flynn, 2009). Both the stories present a humanized experience of a divine

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characteristic- one attempts to employ these traits while the other pursues to conquer
these powers- both ultimately leading to disappointment. In both cases, people’s quest
for divine powers is to understand one’s identity and life purpose. As Borges
understands, ‘The Book of Job’ is about man’s inability to understand divine law, and
‘The Library of Babel’ and ‘Funes the Memorious’ are perfect example of his opinion.

Borges was also inspired by the idea of Kabbalah which is evident in his religious theme.
Jaime Alazraki (1971) states “the Kabbalists differentiate between an exoteric
interpretation of the Scripture and an esoteric one”. In other words, it is the two forms
of interpretation of the scriptures- the former literal interpretation of seeing the story
as is, while the latter is the knowledge concealed from the general population and is to
be understood by a small group. Alazraki uses the Judaist documentation of ‘Torah’ as
an example. The general understanding of The Torah is that is comprised of 22 Hebrew
letters. But these letters are not organised to be understood by men and that only God
knows the exact combination which gives him the power to create the universe
(Alazraki, 1971). The writings of Midrash ( cited in Alazraki, 1971) states that God
“looked into Torah and created the world, since the cosmos and all nature was already
prefigured in the Torah, so that God, looking into the Torah, could see it, although to us
this aspect of the Torah remains concealed.” Thus, Kabbalists have created many levels
to interpret the holy text to break the knowledge barrier between humans and the
divine.

Jorge Borges was very fond of language and this was evident in his fondness for the
Kabbalah and its ‘Sacred Language’. According to Alazraki (Alazraki, 1971), His curiosity
is best portrayed in the story ‘The Writing of the God’. The narrator of the story, and the
protagonist, is a prisoner with a jaguar in the neighbouring cell. The protagonist named
Tzinacan is an Aztec priest. Tzinacan believes that God had written a special phrase on
the first day of Creation that was capable of “warding off those evils” (Borges, 1949)
that would bring about disasters at the end of time. He believes this phrase is in the
pattern of the jaguar’s fur and he needs to find the right combination to decipher it.
Tzinacan, like many of his other characters, represents the quest to find the meaning of

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his life, ergo, his identity. His sheer will power to find the writing of God, as Borges
represents, is his destiny. This characterizes the Schopenhauer traits as mentioned
earlier. It is also in line with the Kabbalistic trade as represented in the Torah- that is- it
contains a series of Hebrew letters that needs to be placed in the right pattern in order
to correctly present the words of God (Alazraki, 1971). ‘The Writing of the God’ is yet
another story where the protagonist believes that in order to understand his identity, he
must decipher the true meaning of the divine writings.

From all the examples above, it can be observed that while Borges was inspired by
religious scriptures, his stories suggested he was religiously sceptical. People are
relentlessly in search of the meaning of their life, to figure out the traits that define their
identity. Often, they seek the answers in the writings of God. As the world live their life
with the words of the heaven, in pursuit of being one with God, Borges seems to believe
that the divine is too complicated and cannot be understood by ordinary humans.
Religious influences on Borges’ stories suggest that instead of finding new and original
ideas for literature, he preferred to reinterpret old scriptures to give them a new
perspective. Thus, he has presented a new way to look at the concept of identity.

Understanding Identity- Stories of magic realism

Magic realism, one of Borges’ most popular themes, was evidently a factor in the quest
for understanding identity. 1918 was the rise of magic realism in the form of paintings,
novels and short stories. Such expressions are famous for their realistic objects that
depict daily life aspects with elements of improbability, leaving the readers puzzled
(Menton, 1982). Borges applied magic realism with the use of oxymoron and paradox.
In some cases, the plot itself presented a magic realist perception. The book ‘Garden of
Forking Paths’ is an example of these Borgesian strategies.

The first sign of magic realism is represented in the use of oxymoron and paradox,
especially in the titles of the stories by Borges. The book ‘The Universal History of
Infamy’ consists of seven stories, with only one story about famous historical figures
(Menton, 1982) - but they are fictional accounts including real individuals. It would

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confuse the reader as one would generally expect a famous historical character. The
title of the stories of this book also contain oxymoron such as ‘El espantoso redentor
Lazarus Morell’ [The Cruel redeemer Lazarun Morell], ‘El impostor inverosimil Tom
Cast’ [The Improbable Imposter Tom Cast] and ‘El incivil maestro de ceremonias
Kotsuke no Suke’ [The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette Kotsukeno Suke] (Menton,
1982). In the first story Lazarus promises freedom to slaves in exchange for a fee, but
eventually, due to ‘unexpected reasons’ the slaves would pass away. In the second story,
Tom Castro is the unlikely imposter because he has no similarities with the person he is
imitating, but is only successful in doing so because of Ebenezer Bogle- a wise black man
(it could be assumed that, to Borges, this was very unusual in the 1930s). In the third
story, Kotsukeno is an etiquette teacher and a representative of the emperor, but
ironically to his title, he has disputes with the Lord of Ako. All three of the titles include
a form of oxymoron and the plots depict magic realism theme as the events are
improbable but not impossible.

A combination of Borges’ powerful symbolism, idealism and magic realism is best seen
in the story ‘The Garden of the Forking Paths’. The central character, Dr Yu Tsun, the
great-grandson of a maze enthusiast (Ts’ui Pen), is currently working as a German spy
and previously worked as an English teacher at Tsingtao. He has set out on a quest to
find Stephen Albert in an attempt to communicate to Berlin the new site of the British
artillery park in France, before Yu Tsun is found by Captain Richard Madden. He soon
finds out that Stephen Albert is a sinologist and has solved the mystery of the labyrinth
that Ts’ui Pen was expected to create but never did. Albert believes that the incomplete
book by Ts’ui Pen, which Yu Tsun (Borges, 1941) considers “an indeterminate heap of
contradictory drafts because it consists of a nearly endless series of events which
involve the same characters in different role” is the infamous labyrinth. At the end of the
story, Yu Tsun kills Stephen Albert which is reported in the newspapers. Yu Tsun
believes that his station in Berlin saw this report and bombed the city- Albert. However,
the same newspaper also mentions that a city named Albert has just been bombed. Any
reader is left puzzled by this ending. Firstly, Borges brings labyrinths into the story once
again, but this time as a labyrinth of space and time. Ts’ui Pen’s book is structured
around the splitting a moment into two parts (constructing a labyrinth inside a book)

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and Yu Tsun’s plan depends on splitting space into two parts (defying space to
communicate information to Berlin) (Philmus, 1974). Secondly, Ts’ui Pen left a note
regarding his book that said “I leave to several futures (not to all) my garden of forking
paths“(Borges, 1941). This is an indication of Borges’ idealist view of time’s multiplicity-
the possibility of all opportunities taking places at the same time and thereby creating
several futures. This connects to the third point- magic realism. It is evident, at this
point, that Borges has kept the reader distracted with the textual progress in the story
(Simpkins, 1988). This ending represents a vital characteristic of reality, that is,
perspectives of any given moment are bound to vary (Simpkins, 1988). In other words,
the bombing of Albert and the killing of Stephen Albert do not necessarily have to be
sequential but rather simultaneous. From a magic realist observation, this is improbable
but not impossible. In this story, Borges’ improbability of magic realism surpasses its
borders into challenging the concept of time (Benevento, 1984) with the use of
labyrinths.

All of the above stories, in their own way, question identity. Based on the title of the first
two stories, Lazarus and Kotsukeno have trustworthy responsibilities but behave in
ways that defy it. Their identities are not representative of their occupations. Castro’s
identity is not of his own but rather his failed attempt at masquerading as someone else.
The standard definition of identity, that it is built on each decision a man makes, is
denied by ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’. Instead, all possible scenarios take place
suggesting there is no one identity. Borges uses a realistic plot with an improbable twist
that makes it more difficult to understand one’s identity, but it is a reminder that
identity is more complex than one may perceive it to be.

Conclusion

Decades after his death, Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, is still puzzling readers
with his stories and their own identity. To have spent much of his adult life in libraries,
gaining knowledge from all forms of genres, it seems Borges exempted a style of writing
that was rebellious towards all other generic genres. As evident in ‘The Writing of the
God’, a story could include a labyrinthine style, inclined towards Schopenhauerian view
of destiny, with a Kabbalist religious theme, in order to say that a man’s identity cannot

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be understood through the scriptures of divinity. Or, a story could exhibit a symbolic
style, influenced by idealism, with a theme of magic realism, to prove the complexity of
identity as the case of ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’. Furthermore, Borges’ identity
seems to be the result of his own creation when he separates himself from the writer of
all of his stories. In the short story ‘Borges and I’, written in the 1960s, Borges (1960)
says “I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this
literature justifies me… I do not know which of us has written this page". Through his
stories, Borges has extracted identity from its major influences, choices in life and
religion, to conclude that it cannot be comprised by specific elements nor can it be
shaped by any elements at all. Thus, to Borges, individuals should not live their life
looking for answers to justify their identity.

Works Cited
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Alazraki, J., 1971. Kabbalistic Traits in Borges' Narration. Studies in Short Fiction , Volume 8, pp.
78-92.

Barrenechea, A. M., 1965. The Labyrinth Maker. New York University Press, pp. 50-51.

Benevento, J., 1984. "An Introduction to the Realities of Fiction: Teaching Magic Realism in
Three Stories by Borges, Fuentes, and Marquez. Kansas Quarterly, 16(3), pp. 125-151.

Borges Center, n.d. Explore Borges's Life and Work. [Online]

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Bullock, A. & Trombley, S., 1999. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. London:
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Ferrua, P., 1976. Macedonio Fernández and Jorge Luis Borges. The International Fiction Review ,
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Lydenberg, R., 1979. Borges a Writer of Parables: Reversal and Infinite Regression. International
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McBride, M., 1977. Jorge Luis Borges, Existentialist: "The Aleph" and the Relativity of Human
Perception. Studies in Short Fiction, Volume 14, pp. 401-403.

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Philmus, R. M., 1974. Wells and Borges and the Labyrinths of Time. Science Fiction Studies, 1(4),
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Woodall, J., 1996. 1899-1914 Quiet Days in Palermo. In: Borges: A Life. New York: BasicBooks,
pp. 5-22.

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