Author Jorge Luis Borges

Book Review # 116673

English > Analysis
Latin-American Studies
Literature > World

Analyzes the role of memory in three short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

1,970 words () | 3 sources | MLA | 2007 Canada

Paper Summary:

In this paper, the writer contends that a common thread throughout the works of writer Jorge Luis Borges is a distrust of order, predictability and linearity as related to memory. To illustrate this contention, the writer examines short stories by Borges: "Funes the Memorious", "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", and "The Circular Ruins". The paper concludes that Borges reads as being averse to totalizing order, which creates a complex literary oeuvre that charms and yet disturbs the reader, which thus offers new paths to understanding this world.

From the Paper:

"Borges also challenges the merit of the imagination and the danger of reliance upon memory in "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". This story is a sustained portrayal of imagination through Borges' traditional short-story format. It tells the tale of an imaginary country created by an underground society of individuals. This country, Uqbar, is a small part of a world called Tlon, created by the Orbis Tertius, or secret creators."

Sample of Sources Used:

Borges, Jorge Luis. Ficciones. Grove Press: New York, 1962.
Borges, Jorge Luis. Labyrinths. New Directions: New York, 1981.
Maimonides, Moses. "Guide of the Perplexed." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001