Secret Morphology and a Vicious Series: Shape and Pattern in Borges Ford Maddox Ford famously thought that an author should open with “the note that suggests the whole book.” In the short story “Death and the Compass,” Borges’ third sentence accomplishes this: “But he did divine,” he writes of his detective-protagonist Erik Lönnrot, “the secret morphology of the vicious series.” Indeed, fixation on shape and form, pattern and symmetry – for conformation – is fundamental to Borges’ story. This is not surprising: After all, the equidistant triangle that connects the locations of the three enigmatic crimes on the city map is “the key” that solves the mystery. But even in less high-profile positions, geometric shapes are pervasive: The Hotel du Nord is a “high prism;” the paint shop that serves as backdrop for the second murder displays “yellow and red rhombs”; the harlequin-costumed kidnappers sport “yellow, red, and green rhombs… diamond designs.” And consider the “rectangular” water in the adjoined dock basin, and the “rectangular belvedere of the villa of Triste-le-Roy; the “quadrilateral jail,” and “that perverse cubicle on the Rue de Toulon.” Order is imposed on chaos; the skewed outlines of reality adjusted into tidy, parallel lines. Which makes sense, because Lönnrot is a shape maker. When Police Commissioner Treviranus suggests that the first victim, Rabbi Yarmolinsky, was murdered by chance, that the intended victim was likely the wealthy Tetrarch of Galilee who was staying in an adjoining room, and that the robber simply went into the wrong room, Lonnrot dismisses the theory. “In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely,” he says. “A rabbi is dead. I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanati... ... middle of paper ... ...gh the Yiddsche Zeitung that you were perusing the writings of Yarmolinsky for the key to his death,” Sharlach tells Lönnrot. This is a peculiar thing to do, but Sharlach understands it – because that’s what he would have likely done: To find structure in everything. This deepens Borges’ commentary even further. For in this final scene, this confrontation of sleuths, Borges does not pit Lönnrot against an Other; he sets him before an opposing mirror, against a reflection of himself. Notice the language Borges uses to describe them: Sharlach is “indifferent,” displaying “fatigued triumph” and great “sadness”; Lönnrot feels “an impersonal, almost anonymous sadness.” And with one final metonymic twist, Lönnrot ’s own hamartia is his undoing: With Lönnrot ’s personal gun in hand, Sharlach “stepped back a few paces. Then, very carefully, he fired.”
Under what circumstances would you go through to better and provide for your family? Would you embark on these six deadly sins above to just get a simple loaf of bread on the table? There is no solid blame or black and white definite answer throughout this novel, The Devil’s Highway. The author Luis Alberto Urrea takes his readers to different perspectives and offers different points of view whether you appear to be a walker, coyote, or the border control on the topic of illegal immigration. Being that Urrea puts the reader in each person shoe’s and truly sees what immense, harsh, conditions for example these immigrants had to go through. Again there is no solid blame or black and white answers, both sides are at fault and in need of a solution to the problem.
Kafka’s story begins on a note of despair and just when it looks like the convict will not live to see another day, a turn of events suggest he might. When the traveller thinks there is nothing he could do to change the system, he sparks the plug that might make the change happen. Borges on the other hand expeciences life through the Aleph which leads him to believe that there is still hope in the world, hope that there are greater things to come and greater things to live for instead of being bogged down by everyday events.
After her diagnosis of chronic kidney failure in 2004, psychiatrist Sally Satel lingered in the uncertainty of transplant lists for an entire year, until she finally fell into luck, and received her long-awaited kidney. “Death’s Waiting List”, published on the 5th of May 2006, was the aftermath of Satel’s dreadful experience. The article presents a crucial argument against the current transplant list systems and offers alternative solutions that may or may not be of practicality and reason. Satel’s text handles such a topic at a time where organ availability has never been more demanded, due to the continuous deterioration of the public health. With novel epidemics surfacing everyday, endless carcinogens closing in on our everyday lives, leaving no organ uninflected, and to that, many are suffering, and many more are in desperate request for a new organ, for a renewed chance. Overall, “Death’s Waiting List” follows a slightly bias line of reasoning, with several underlying presumptions that are not necessarily well substantiated.
In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, irony is used to convey information and it contributes to the overall theme of the novel. Written during the era of McCarthyism, Fahrenheit 451 is about a society where books are illegal. This society believes that being intellectual is bad and that a lot of things that are easily accessible today should be censored. The overall message of the book is that censorship is not beneficial to society, and that it could cause great harm to one’s intelligence and social abilities. An analysis of irony in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury shows that this literary technique is effective in contributing to the overall theme of the novel because it gives more than one perspective on how censorship can negatively affect a society.
“I swear – by my life and my love of it – that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine” (Rand 979). The last lines of John Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged declare the fundamental principle of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Her ideology plays an integral role in her literary pieces, functioning as the motor driving the actions, goals, and beliefs of the protagonists. From the first strains of Objectivism established during her childhood in Russia, Ayn Rand would develop and cultivate her ideas further in each novel, culminating in her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. We the Living, The Fountainhead, and Anthem share the theme of Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead and Anthem would join the masterpiece as staples of the Objectivist and Libertarian ideologies (Smith 384). Nothing could pose a greater contrast when presented in juxtaposition with Rand’s doctrine than the Communism of her childhood. Ayn Rand’s experiences living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic led her to create Objectivism; through her fictional works, she showcases her philosophy which is centered on the struggle of the individual versus the collective by emphasizing different aspects in each of her novels.
The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas is a short story written by Ursula Le Guin. In her story, Le Guin creates a model Utilitarian society in which the majority of its citizens are devoid of suffering; allowing them to become an expressive, artistic population. Le Guin’s unrelenting pursuit of making the reader imagine a rich, happy and festival abundant society mushrooms and ultimately climaxes with the introduction of the outlet for all of Omelas’ avoided misfortune. Le Guin then introduces a coming of age ritual in which innocent adolescents of the city are made aware of the byproduct of their happiness. She advances with a scenario where most of these adolescents are extremely burdened at first but later devise a rationalization for the “wretched one’s” situation. Le Guin has imagined a possible contemporary Utilitarian society with the goal to maximize the welfare of the greatest number of people. On the contrary, Kant would argue that using the child as a mere means is wrong and argue that the living conditions of the child are not universalizable. The citizens of Omelas must face this moral dilemma for all of their lives or instead choose to silently escape the city altogether.
Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a futuristic dystopian society where a fireman, Guy Montag, questions what he has been told his entire life. The novel begins when Guy, more commonly referred to as Montag, leaves the fire station late at night. Montag is a fireman; however, in this novel, firemen are portrayed as men who start fires rather than put them out. While walking home, Montag runs into a young girl named Clarisse who is very out of the ordinary. They begin to have a conversation about Montag’s job, which consists of burning the books that are forbidden in the society they live in. Montag and Clarisse begin to have daily conversations but one day Clarisse simply disappears, and this causes Montag to question his beliefs.
The most powerful motivation is greed and it only can be stopped with proper mediators but they must not become too excited and act foolish or their cause will become too big to consume. Great ideas for good causes take time, and warnings must be kept in mind, no matter how much the plan is needed to happen. Even though the world of a dystopian society is absolutely horrible, no government is ever overthrown easily. The exempt people of such societies, who call themselves leaders, lead lives of too much decadence as they can as they choose the lives of others. In “Burning Bright,” part three of Fahrenheit 451, Beatty says, “Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he’s burnt his damn wings, he wonders why.” This allusion demonstrates that Guy Montag and Kurt Vonnegut’s title character “Harrison Bergeron” both suffered like Icarus because they failed to heed warnings.
One of England’s greatest literary figures, William Shakespeare, expressed the truth about coveting knowledge by saying that “ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven” (William Shakespeare Quotes). One must assume that Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451, learned from this. Bradbury’s novel shares a similar portrayal towards coveting knowledge. In the novel the protagonist realizes that he is living in a world where knowledge is lost. People abide by rules and restrictions given to them by the government. There is nothing in this society to make people think about how valuable knowledge is, except for books. The protagonist is a fireman whose job is to seek out books and destroy the contents. The mass population believes that books are a waste of time and useless. The protagonist also believes this until a change of heart leads to a journey of identity and curiosity. Bradbury believes that this type of world will eventually turn into our own. Clearly, Ray Bradbury’s outlook for the future of man is grim because he represses intellectual endeavor, lacks critical thinking, and becomes destructive.
Monsters under the bed, drowning, and property damage are topics many people have nightmares about; nightmares about a dystopian future, on the other hand, are less common. Despite this, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984 display a nightmarish vision about a dystopian society in the near future. Fahrenheit 451 tells of Guy Montag’s experience in a society where books have become illegal and the population has become addicted to television. Meanwhile, 1984 deals with Winston Smith’s affairs in Oceania, a state controlled by the totalitarian regime known as the Party. This regime is supposedly headed by a man named Big Brother. By examining the dehumanized settings, as well as the themes of individuality and manipulation, it becomes clear that novels successfully warn of a nightmarish future.
The novel Fahrenheit 451 was wrote by Ray Bradbury. The setting takes place in future times. The main character (protagonist) in Fahrenheit 451 is, ‘Guy Montag’. Guy Montag has been a fireman for ten years and he doesn’t realize that he is not joyful towards his life. He never questioned the joy of midnight runs. The plot of the story is basically how Guy turned from being an ignorant person into being a person filled with intelligence and a new outlook on life. Guy is a normal man that can’t find his true happiness within. 451 degrees is the temperature that books burn. Literature is taboo in this futuristic society, and Guy’s job is to burn any books or news clippings he sees, however his views change for the better further in the novel.
In Thomas Nagel’s “Death,” he questions whether death is a bad thing, if it is assumed that death is the permanent end of our existence. Besides addressing whether death is a bad thing, Nagel focuses on whether or not it is something that people should be fearful of. He also explores whether death is evil. Death is defined as permanent death, without any form of consciousness, while evil is defined as the deprivation of some quality or characteristic. In his conclusion, he reaffirms that conscious existence ends at death and that there is no subject to experience death and death ultimately deprives a person of life. Therefore, he states that Death actually deprives a person of conscious existence and the ability to experience. The ability to experience is open ended and future oriented. If a person cannot permanently experience in the future, it is a bad or an evil. A person is harmed by deprivation. Finally, he claims that death is an evil and a person is harmed even though the person does not experience the harm.
Wiehe, Roger E. "Jorge Luis Borges." Critical Survey of Short Fiction. Vol 3. Ed. Frank N. Magill. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, 1981: 977-982.
A dark and melodramatic author named Edgar Allan Poe once said in one of his poems, “I became sane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” This quote from “The Raven” couriers the deep dark meaning to his own life. The author, Jorge Luis Borges, also uses dark lines to express his own life situations. Dark themes are shown throughout Latin American literature to tell a story of the author’s point in life, it also is in need of more time, therefore time was clear throughout human history. Latin American writing is expressed through time, blindness, and death, around the regions of Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, to display an allusion to darkness. Dark themes are unswerving throughout the works. Latin American works have a reference
A story that caught my attention in particular was that of “The Dead Man.” On the surface a simpler story; violent, fast-paced, and in a typical Borges fashion, a surprise ending where we realize the connection between the title and the protagonist’s fate is revealed. However, upon a second or third reading, it becomes evident that Borge’s famed puzzles and subtle commentary are indeed at work here.