Jorge Luis Borges: "Emma Zunz," "The Gospel According to Mark," "The Garden of Forking Paths"

Throughout the three narratives Borges delves into the concept of time; the subjectivity of it, which therefore renders it with a cyclic nature. He, also, speaks about the nature of sacrifice. In fact, throughout the three novels we get to see the protagonist kill or killed in some sacrificial manner. Finally, Borges, in keeping it “magically real,” hearkens back to the power of the mind. Primarily, the role that it plays in our ability to perceive and interpret reality.

            Beginning with the idea of time, I’ll start talking about the “Garden of Forking Paths.” In the whole story, which is told in first person, we are—as readers—bestowed into the inner reaches of the protagonist’s mind. His insecurities and doubts we are privy to. It is quickly revealed that he is a “cowardly man” who engaged in the business of espionage not for the love of Germany, but for the need to vindicate “the people of [his] race, that there was no need to fear “the enumerable ancestors who merged within [him]. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that he has to get intelligence to the Nazis, and meanwhile he’s being pursued by another spy who wants to kill him. Because he is an anxious and fearful man who is “pressed for time,” he shifts through time by sifting through various decisions and actions right away. Instantaneously, he dictates in his mind the path that he will take to reach his goal, but just as soon as he resolves to execute a plan by following that path, he swiftly changes his mind and branches from that path, altering his course and therefore altering his fate.

 In the end, Borges says “the author of an atrocious undertaking out to imagine that he has already accomplished it, out to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past” For to him time is “intimate and infinite” It is a sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars.” The big idea here is that life is not linear nor is one’s destiny. As we see with our protagonist, what he did or failed to do in the past resulted in the present for him and what he does or fails to do renders his future accordingly. What’s more, with every mood, or whim, or calculation that bears on our thoughts as make decision, we create for a different ending for ourselves.

Sacrifice plays a great role in the “Gospel According to Mark.” Here, Borges makes a pretty bold statement. He mirrors his narrator, Baltasar Espinosa, after Jesus Christ in every sense. He is thirty three, he is well spoken, intelligent, but without “direction.” This is a blow to the heart mainstream Christian belief because the actions of Christ are thought to be all pre-destined. He came to act in a story that was already written about him, long ago from the prophets. Borges recreates Christ with a few caveats. That is, he is more practical than religious, he is more complacent than willful, and that he did good acts not out of a fondness for humanity but because he was compelled by his “acquiescent nature.” As the story proceeds, Espinosa goes and lives among the rural Gutres (they represent the poor and, also, his apostles), he has dinner with them and later they crucify him. Again, this just corroborates that Espinosa is Christ. What Borges wants to communicate, however, is that the man who many think of as purely pious and devoted singularly one cause, is, in fact, more reasonable and practical. He is “normal” like the rest of us. Indeed, he was full of opinions, but he was not perfect in every way that’s why some of his actions were “questionable.” Ultimately, he is sacrificed because people misunderstand and misconstrue his ways.

Finally, with regards to perception, we can look at “Emma Zunz.” Zunz is fascinating because she preps herself up in order to relive a painful experience so that she can free herself to “become the person she would be.” She had suffered humiliation for her father being wrongfully indicted for the crime of embezzlement; then, again for his subsequent suicide. She vows revenge by going out to kill her father’s old friend who was responsible for her suffering. However, to go about it, she has to make herself feel the pain. She was already suffering from it, but she has to bring out the pain to its quintessence so that she can compel herself inflict it upon someone else. Now she is a virgin, but for the sake of duty, she goes out and sleeps with a hideous man. Herein lies Borges brilliance: a virgin’s greatest pride and fear is the protection and loss of her maidenhead. So, as an audience, to witness such a momentous and self-effacing and self-sacrificing act causes us to cringe and say “Oh, I feel your pain now. You really got screwed when he did this to your father.” Even more amazing, Zunz wills herself to imagine and live in the moment again. Her mind recreates an old reality and merges it with her new one, so that she does “become the person she would be.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez-- The Paradox of "An Old, Ugly Angel and a Young, Handsome Dead Man"

            Gabriel Garcia Marquez infiltrates the psyche of readers as well as, practically, most humankind in the two short stories, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.” In the former he draws focus to the confused, and often, preconceived imagination which stumps the mind’s ability to really perceive reality. In the latter he mocks the “overactive” imagination which can create a palpable and most genuine feel of fantasy, leaving one trapped in it.

            Who would imagine that an angel of god could be “old and bald with very few teeth, possessing a pair of dirty half-plucked wings." What’s more, could you imagine that he couldn’t speak latin (“the language of the god”) or that he’d be so decrepit that he looked “much too human?” Likewise, would you imagine that in death, a man could elicit so much heart-felt emotions from a village of strangers that they'd  think him to be a real, everyday-villager who once lived amongst them?” That he would be considered one of the villages’ own and given a name (Esteban) because he was so handsome? That is to say, would you imagine that, through his graceful and good looks, people would have more faith, more belief, in a dead man having lived with them than in an old angel who was living with them and performing miracles before their very eyes? The answer is that people put their faith and hopes in the wrong places. In the story of the dead man people weep and mourn for a man who never did and cannot do a thing for them; they attribute a name to his face and create a tale of his life. Conversely, in the story of the old man we see an abandoned and disdained man, who although is an angel of god, is not thought of so and in fact is received with doubt and skepticism.

            All Marquez wants to say is that faith, which if is something that one holds important, must be practiced in a most sincere way or else one can never truly see the "real" miracles that permeate through it. He demonstrate this by how Pelayo and Elisenda (the host family of the old man) are incapable of realizing that before them is an angel by who’s presence they’ve been made more wealthier and more whole. “The world had been sad since…Sea and sky were a single ash-gray thing,” but his presence marked the beginning of the “first sunny days.” Yet sadly, mankind, when confronted with a manifestation of his religious devotion, fails to comprehend the complexities and paradoxes and so choose to see “it depart.”  Marquez is saying that what we do when we see that what we’ve been taught doesn’t fit the mold of the reality of what confronts us is we retreat into the gates of our minds and lock it. But that’s not what we must do. Instead, we have to wrench ourselves from the grip of what has been, for so long, ingrained in the fabric of our minds as the simple, and pure truth. In this way, we analyze everyone and everything as good or bad, harmful or beneficial on purely its intrinsic qualities alone and not by appearances or the derivatives of any other quality that we already harbor.

Cortazar's Intentions: "The Continuity of the Parks", "The Demeanor at Wakes", & "Axolotls"

Julio Cortazar in his short stories, Axolotls,” “Our Demeanor at Wakes”, and “The Continuity of the Parks,” presents the human being in a light that shows his shortcomings and strengths. He highlights the positive attributes such as our sense of pity and compassion, but also makes plain our temperament to be deceitful to the point where we not only fool and manipulate others but lose ourselves, and our humanity.

I’ll begin with this praising of humanity by looking at “Axolotls”. The narrator in this story is very much like all of us in that he seeks to live for his sole delight, amusement and joy. He goes to the zoo for this very reason. This man wants to be entertained at sheer sight and thrill evoked by the panther and the lion. Indeed, it wasn’t his intention to see the silent, diminutive axolotls; fortuitous circumstances bring him into contact with them and it is at that moment that he “is linked by something lost and distant” between them. So, it isn’t as if the axolotls weren’t already “…slaves of their bodies” who were “condemned infinitely to the silence of the abyss” and doomed to a “hopeless meditation.” We can presume that they had dwelled in that state inside the “dark, humid building that was the aquarium,” ever since they had been put there. Cortazar wants to remind us all who live every day to bear this in mind — that we shouldn’t live emotionally insulated from what is happening around us. He recognizes that we prefer not to think about the suffering in the world, because it is easier for us that way (and I’m at fault of this). But it is this exactly, which Cortazar urges us to eschew. There are those around the world, who although are, perhaps, distant and separated in time, but suffering. “Once we go on to know,” we discover amazingly that they are not different from us but, we are the same. I couldn’t agree more.     

Now, in looking at “Our Demeanor at Wakes” we get to see Cortazar satirizing on human follies in a more mean-spirited way. Although, I disagree on the subject matter (death) that he chooses to demonstrate our propensity to be hypocritical, he gets the point across. At the very beginning he tells you right away “We don’t go for the anisette, we don’t even go because we’re expected to. You’ll have guessed our reason already: we go because we cannot stand the craftier forms of hypocrisy.” And he’s talking about— in this case — people’s exaggerated show of sorrow— but, in general, people’s pretend show of care and concern towards others. Cortazar alludes to what author Kyoko Mori in her memoir, Polite Lies, calls “polite lies”. The term is Mori’s expression of what we do to keep and maintain polite society. It is how we are unable to express ourselves completely to people, how we cannot be frank. And this is not in the sense of being brutally honest, but rather, it is not being able to say what we mean to say. Thus, we fake it, and therefore we lie. Simply put, don’t do it. Because if and when you do, it compels others to act in the like manner, as a result, it renders us all hypocrits.

Lastly and above all, however, Cortazar is shouting and pointing out to readers and saying, “Look, I’m not just putting on display here the virtues and vices of mankind but I want you to notice the way I’m doing it. I’m using art.” Yes, he wants us to understand the power of art. He tells us that art is real.  “The continuity of the Parks”epitomizes this concept. As the audience we get to witness our protagonist become the main character in the novel he’s reading because his situation and his environment are so much intertwined. Again, this is us. We are moved to be moved by art.

The Popol Vuh

        After reading the Mayan sacred text about the creation of the world and the origin and purpose of humanity, I'm  struck by the parallels that I am able draw between their perspective, and the Christian beliefs in which I share: From the void, dark and formless matter which had gods hovering in or above the waters to the creation of men or man who was perfect in every sense-- An image of the gods themselves-- whom became reduced to imperfection by their god or gods in order to forestall any competition between creator and creation. Furthermore, the purpose of both humanity in the two accounts of creation is to give worship,  and adoration to their gods and ask them for guidance and wisdom, and above all, remember them in whatever they do. The Mayans did this through prayer and sacrifice. They "were reverent, they were givers of praise, givers of respect, lifting faces to the sky" when they made requests. Almost, in the same fashion as a  Christian, it is important for me to read the bible, meet up every Sunday at church and, with reverence, make supplications. Through these acts I pay homage to my god remembering him as the creator of all things.
       A final point, when I think about these similarities it makes me wonder how both the Christian beliefs and the Mayans beliefs and some other ones are so much alike. Especially, with their overall guiding themes. My guess is that the human condition is the same everywhere and as a result human beings are rendered by their environment to think alike.