he southern designs and Jorge LUIS Borges' The secret miracle

A single of Jorge Luis Borges’ most popular works is Ficciones ,which is a collection of quick stories. Borges’ style of writing is classified as Borgesian. His functions are classified as Borgesian simply because they are special to him, no other author writes like Borges, although some may possibly be similar. His brief stories usually incorporate motifs, such as symbols and metaphors, that engage the audience and give the story substance. “The South” and “The Secret Miracle” are both two short stories featured in Ficciones that have a substantial quantity of motifs. The 3 most widespread motifs that can be located in these stories are: metaphors, the notion of inception, and the symbolism of life as a dream. Borges incorporates these devices to give the brief stories deeper which means and give the reader insight into his life.

“The Secret Miracle” is a brief story about a Jewish gentleman who is count and has to prepare for his execution by firing squad. Even though he is about to die his major concern is finishing his novel The Enemies ,as it will be the last literary function that he will be judged by. This story can be perceived as a metaphor for how Borges felt for the duration of this time. The metaphor is that Borges felt as if he was operating out of time and he still had all this wonderful functions in thoughts that he had to finish. The metaphor is shown in how Hladik is worried about how he is going to finish The Enemies in only a couple of days and how he tries to figure out how to get a lot more time. Fortunately God does grant him this time. A symbol utilized in this short story is life as a dream, which is one of Borges’s renowned motifs. All through the story Hladik has moments exactly where only he is conscious of what is “truly” going on and often occasions these moments seem to be a dream. An instance of this would be when Hladik is becoming walked to the execution sight and before he gets executed time stops and only Hladik is conscious of it (p.148-149). Borges writes that Hladik was offered a whole year to finish his book, even so for everyone else it felt like only mere seconds. Its as if Hladik is dreaming or fantasizing about obtaining this time even though everybody else is living in reality. Hladik in fact gets the chance to accomplish his dream of finishing his book although no a single else will know because it was all in his head. This aligns with the thought of fantasy versus reality, how can the audience perceive what is genuine and what is fake? Is Hladik truly granted this time or not? This is yet another main motif in the operates of Borges. He usually time walks the fine line of what is real and what is not. This also correlates to inception inside dreams. Hladik is granted the time to perform on The Enemies in a dream so how can the audience be sure that it is genuine?

“The South” is a brief story about a man named Johannes Dahlmann, who gets blood poisoning from an injury and is sent of to the hospital. Soon after he arrives at the hospital and is being helped the story begins to get fascinating simply because the audience has to make a decision from two endings, either he dies in the hospital or in a knife fight. Dahlmann is Argentine, but he lost touch of his roots and craves to go down to his grandfather’s ranch to get back in touch with his culture. This would be one more metaphor for Borges’s feelings similar to the a single in “ The Secret Miracle.” Borges felt the exact same way has Dahlmann as he went via life and at some point he did reconnect with his culture. Borges usually occasions alludes to the events of his life via his characters. Yet another motif utilized by Borges in this story is fantasy versus reality and he does this through setting. Dalhmann is taken to a sanitarium right after his injury is treated.