Discussion - Week Eleven - Borges - The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero

[Jim]

This discussion covers the story, The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero


“The idea that history might have copied history is mind-boggling enough; that history should copy literature is inconceivable…”


Indeed! Lots to chew on in this story.

[Sosen]

This one struck me as similar to "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in its structure. Borges discusses a mystery with sinister and otherworldly possibilities. In the end, all is explained rationally, but it's not very believable.

I think this story is brilliant. But trying to analyze it is giving me brain pain. Is the assassination literature, or history? Borges mentions vast peripatetic plays that reconstruct historical events. The assassination is much like one of these, except it isn't a reconstruction; it's the event, itself.

[Zadignose]

I read this as a rather straight forward development of the way a paranoid views history and political events.

It also has at least a superficial connection to the shape of the sword, in that we've got Irish revolutionaries and the theme of a man who is both hero and traitor.

[Jim]

Zadignose wrote: "I read this as a rather straight forward development of the way a paranoid views history and political events.

It also has at least a superficial connection to the shape of the sword, in that we'v..."

I can see that. I also thought of people in power who read history and literature about past people in power and how that seeps into their actions both consciously and unconsciously. What general doesn't want to be victorious like Alexander and what President doesn't want to lead like Augustus? And so, when the traitor revealed himself, they playacted his punishment in a way that would best serve the "literature" of their revolution.

[Mala]

Z wrote:"It also has at least a superficial connection to the shape of the sword, in that we've got Irish revolutionaries and the theme of a man who is both hero and traitor."

From the Paris Review interview:

"Interviewer:I have often wondered how you go about arranging works in those collections. Obviously the principle is not chronological. Is it similarity of theme?

Borges: No, not chronology; but sometimes I find out that I've written the same parable or story twice over, or that two different stories carry the same meaning, and so I try to put them alongside each other. That's the only principle."