Imagery In 'The Garden Of Forking Paths'

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Another element that supports the idea of deficiency in “The Garden of Forking Paths” is fire and light imagery, which connects not only to parts of the story, but to the incomplete books previously mentioned as well because some have partly gone missing by burning up in flames. The character Stephen Albert is commonly associated with fire imagery; beginning with the first time Yu encounters him while the man is holding a blindingly bright lantern. This thread continues into Yu’s description of Albert: His face was deeply lined and he had gray eyes and a gray beard. (95) In this sentence, gray is symbolic of ashes, the remains of a fire. His gray hairs and facial wrinkles suggest Albert is coming to the end of his lifetime. However, the image of the “bronze …show more content…

Interestingly, the story in the middle of the collection titled “The Garden of Forking Paths” in Ficciones is “The Circular Ruins,” in which the wizard escapes to the ruined temple to dream. The Pavilion and the ruins are not only structurally parallel; they are thematically similar as well because both serve as places where Borges’ characters come to discover what they are missing. During his time at the Pavilion, Pên writes a complex and elaborate novel that aims to explain the realization he arrived at regarding the shape of time. At the end of his story, the wizard’s own state of being imagined is revealed to him as he steps into the fire and does not burn. Unlike the scorched books or the ashes the phoenix rises out of, the wizard does not go through the process of losing parts of himself. The wizard does not have remains because he is not human; conversely, he is the remains of another human’s

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