Name: Medvei Krisztina, Marton Roland Institution: Petru Maior University, Trgu-Mure Specialization: RE Year: 3rd

Jorge Luis Borges

Death and the Compass

2014

Structure:
The author: Jorge Luis Borges Content Plot: Short story: Death and the Compass Characters Magic Realism Features of Magic Realism in the short story
Marton Roland Medvei Krisztina

Title, themes, symbols Authors style Conclusion Bibliography

The author

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on August24, 1899. He was a shortstory writer, essayist,poet and translator. His familyincluded British ancestry. We can remark that he learned English before Spanish. We can discover from the internet site Britannica that the first books that he read was from the library of his father. His father was a man of wide-ranging intellect who taught at an English school. So the first books he read were in English and included The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the novels of H.G. Wells, The Thousand and One Nights, and Don Quixote. We can also notice that under the constant stimulus and example of his father, the young Borges from his earliest years recognized that he was destined for a literary career.1 Also we can found out from another source that, he started writing at the age of six, mostly fanciful stories inspired by Cervantes. When he was nine, he translated Oscar Wildes The Happy Prince into Spanish, an effort which appeared in a local newspaper called El Pas. We can remark an interesting thing, thatsince it was signed only Jorge Borges, everyone assumed it was his fathers work. After some visits to the Pampa, where his mothers cousins owned a ranch on the Uruguay River, he attempted to write gaucho poems, but quickly confessed that they were a failure. But still the pampas exerted an influence on him, and in addition to learning how to swim, he stored up many images that would typically later seek a more fulfilling release in his later stories. 2 Another thing that we can notice is the fact that the writer, Jorge Luis Borges writes a lot of short stories, from which we can mention his best known- books: Ficciones and The Aleph, published in1940. TheDeath and the Compass it was published in Sur in May 1942 and it was included in the 1944 collection Ficciones. It was first translated into English in the New Mexico Quarterly (Autumn 1954). We can also realise that his short-storyes includes a lot of themes like labyrinths, dreams, mirrors, libraries, philosophy, religion, andfictional writers. The Critic ngel Flores, the first to use the term magical realism to define a genre that reacted against the dominant realism and naturalism of the 19th century, considers the beginning of the movement to be the release of Borges's A Universal History of Infamy (Historia universal de la infamia). 3

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/74100/Jorge-Luis-Borges http://www.themodernword.com/borges/borges_biography.html

Theo L. D'Haen (1995) "Magical Realism and Postmodernism: Decentering Privileged Centers", in: Louis P. Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, Magical Realism: Theory, History and Community. Duhan and London, Duke University Press pp. 191208.

We can fined out from the Wikipedia that in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955 he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind at the age of 55; as he never learned braille, he became unable to read. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. 4 Returning to his life, we found out that in 1938 two tragedies have occured. First, his beloved father died; and then on Christmas Eve, Borges himself had an accident that brought on a serious illness. (He would later recast this incident into fiction in the story The South.) While running up a stairway, he grazed a freshly painted casement with his forehead, and soon after the wound became infected and he fell ill, hallucinating in bed for a weeks. After an operation in the hospital, he developed septicemia, and for a month hovered between life and death. 5 So he died in 14 June 1986.

Contents
The book named Death and the Compass writed by Luise Borges Jorge, it is a short-story collection. This book includes three main books.Main titles: The Garden of Forking Paths (1944) which describe a lot of short-stories likeTln, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote; The Circular Ruins; The Lottery in Babylon; An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain ; The Library of Babel; The Garden of Forking Paths. The second main title in this book is the:Artifices. In this part we can find also the short story:Death and the Compass. Beside this, we can also read the following short-stories:Funes the Memorious; The Form of the Sword ; Theme of the Traitor and the Hero;The Secret Miracle;Three Versions of Judas; The End; The Sect of the Phoenix; The South .And lst, but not least, we can find a third title: The Aleph (1949). This part includes the following short-stories:The Immortal; The Dead Man; The Theologians; Story of the Warrior and the Captive; A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz ; Emma Zunz; The House of Asterion; The Other Death; Deutsches Requiem; Averroes's Search; The Zahir; The Writing of the God; IbnHakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth; The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths; The Wait; The Man on the Threshold; The Aleph . So we can observe, that each of these titles describes a short-story, whit a plot, a theme, symbols and many characters, which are different from a story to another. We also can observe that each story is addressed to somebody. In most of the storyeswe can observe the symbols,
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges http://www.themodernword.com/borges/borges_biography.html

themes of the labirint, the books and the death. We can also remark the thing that theese shortstories have something misterious in them. We can also remark that the story teller was the narrator, the writer, who was present in the story also as a character. So lets analise the short story Death and the Compass, which has the same name whit the book.

Plot: Short story: Death and the Compass

The story begins whit the description that the narrators tells about Erik Lnnrot. In this first paragraph we can find out something about the ending of the story. Here we find out that Lnnrot figured out the crimes from the Triste-le-Roy ville. This last crime he faild to prevent. There we find out that Dandy Scharlach (also caalles RedScharlach ) wanted to kill Lnnrot, who was like August Dupin. The first murder was in Hotel du Nord, where doctor Marcel Jarmolinsky was killed whit a kinife. Here Lnrot and the police captain are thinking how and why was that man murdered. After that they found a letter in which had the following written in it: The first letter of the name of God has been uttered.After that Lnrod started to read thet mens books. This was in 3rd December. The second crime happened on in 3rd January night. The killed persons name was Daniel Simon Azevedo. He was a thief. This crime happened in a place where people dont leave. There Lnrot found out another writing: The Second Letter of the Name has been uttered.After that, the telephone rings at Trevianus policemen. Here a men, called Ginzberg, sais that he will say who killed the men if he getsa reward. The captain descovered from where call was comming from, the place was the Rue de Toulon pub. So they, Trevianus and Lnrod went to the pub, to see what is the situation. There they found out from the owner that Gryphius was gone with three men who ware dressed as clowns. When they want to go out from the pub, they descovered the writing that sais: The last letter of the Name has been uttered. Also there was underlined the passage that: The Jewish day begins at sundown and lasts until the following sundown. After that, Trevianus gets a letter in which it sais that there wont be another murder soon. In addition he also gets a map in which the place where the crime happened was illustrated. After that Trevianus sent this letter to Lnnrot, who knew that there will be another crime, so he gone to the labyrinthian house, that was abounded in pointless symmetries and in maniacal repetitions. The diamonds of the window: they were yellow, red and green. Red Scharlach who explains the significance of all the objects in the other three settings. After that Lnnro was killed by a shut.

Characters
Main Characters 1) Erik Lnnrot- The detective-a pure reasoner, an Auguste Dupin. Solves the murder mystery

by pure reasoning like reading books about the name of God, perceiving the hidden symmetries of time and space, and using a set of compasses. At the end he will be killed by Sharlach. 2) (Red) Dandy Scharlach -Ginzberg (Gryphius)- (Baruch Spinoza)- The criminal who

brilliantly traps Lnnrot by letting him use his reasoning skills to lead himself to his own death. He creates a mystery with a pattern of threes. So there was 3 murders on the 3rd of the month in 3 places that form an equilaterial triangle. At the end he will kill Lnnrot who will be the fourth person. 3) Franz Trevianus Is the police inspector who uses common sense reasoning and rejects

pure, abstract reasoning. He suggested the first death was a mistake, so the murder entered in a wrong room. He also suggests that the 3rd murder could be a hoax. Secondary characters 1) Marcel Jarmolinsky- The first people who was killed. He was the delegate from Podolsk to

the Third Talmudic Congress, a man of gray beard and gray eyes. 2) A police-He foud the letter in which was wited: The first letter of the name of God has been

uttered. 3) 4) A writer of Jidische Yaitung : Whit him spoke Marcel Jamolinsky the previous day. Daniel Simon Azevedo- The second people who was murdered. He worked to Scharlach,

but because he was a traitor, he was killed. He was also int he plan of rhe murdering. 5) 6) Blak Finnegan- He was the owner of the Rue de Toulon pub,who was also a bed men. The two clown and the carter in a bear mask- they take Scharlach whit them .

Features of Magic Realism in the short story: Death and the Compass

Magic Realism (A.K.A Magical Realism),is a style of writing in which the author using his artistic techniques and strategies combines ordinary elements of human existence with unusual, magical elements and by combining this two elements the work has to a represent reality as much as possible. Franz Roh describes the Magic Realism: "our real world re-emerges before our eyes, bathed in the clarity of a new day, Death and the Compass depicts the Magical Realist style very well because we have a real place, location Buenos Aires, the criminal fighting detectives whom have sort of special powers: Comandate Borges who even though he was blind he was a detective and he claimed to be a sharp shooter, along with his brother General Borges who was deaf and still in the city force. Even if they were disadvantaged by the deficiency they had, they were the only detectives who faced the evil and very powerful adversary. Another character with magical elements is Lonnrot.Lonnrot is represented as a special detective, with special abilities, abilities to see what others dont, to be there where other cant or wouldnt reach. He is presented by the commissioner of City Detectives, Treviranus. Treviranus is not only Lonnrots commissioner he is Lonnrots friend to, he knows Lonnrot very well giving him the opportunity to present him. As the murders occur they have to go deeper and deeper in the case, they have to face tougher and tougher enemies but Lonnrot show braveness he is not back down from the enemy. Lonnrot so to say power was that he always knew where to look the clues and only him was capable to understand them! Only he is capable to understand the messages he receives from the criminal but unfortunately by the time he discovers the meaning of the messages all of his backup men are taken away from him and even without any backup he is investigating further. We have to mention the villa Triste Le Roy where Lonnrot is eventually killed, seems to be mystical, magical: appears larger than it really is, it is abandoned and still Lonnrot finds some red roses in the rooms. At last but not least, the Killer, Red Scharlach or Zunz lures Lonnrot into the villa Triste Le Roy by knowing Lonnrot ability to see behind clues and unfortunately Lonnrot isnt smart enough to see that he is accompanied by the villain and eventually the villain causes his death. Many magical realistic elements can be found in this short story but these are the most relevant ones showing how wonderful can a magical realistic work can be. The magical realism

requires attention form the reader to the clues which are hidden in the text but also makes the reading more exciting and enjoyable.

Title, themes, symbols

The title is very tricky, because combines two elements: Death and compass together and by its meaning we can understand that with a compass we can find the murdering and eventually the murderer but in fact it can lead to death as it did with our protagonist Lonnrot. We can say that the Death and the Compass are clues to what might contain the short story; Death = murder, antagonist, dead and the Compass = path, way, direction. Judging by this we can have a sort of starting point but just enough to get the reader curious what might be in the short story. There is only on big theme in Death and the Compass; the detective genre. The detective genre the biggest themes in the short story Death and the Compass. This short story has all the steps or the basic structure of a detective story: First thing in any detective fiction is the presentation of the crime and the crime scene, in which of course the mystery occurs and none of the reader nor the ordinary man/character can see or solve the mystery only the Detective seem to have clue or to be able to find some clues. The investigation begins and the detective using his skills, he observes and reflects boosting the readers interest. The detective solves the mystery but he/she still leaves under mystery because he does not explain what he found out, just that he lifted the fog from the crimes, leaving the reader under suspense. Exposing/arresting (or in our case the protagonist gets killed) the antagonist, killer and his team. Usually the ordinary man, the reader could not guess who was the murderer and this brings a pleasant shock to the reader. After exposing the antagonist (in our case the antagonist is the one who tells the plan he made to capture the protagonist) the protagonist reveals the clues, steps he made in order to capture the bad guys. Usually this step is made under the shock state of the reader or immediately after the turning point of the story. Other themes are not so relevant, but they show up from time to time, for example Treviranus talks about these Heroes (Commandant Borges his brother General Borges and Lonnrot) they are all presented like heroes, they have a constant so to say aura circling around them making them invincible up to a certain point but enough to call them heroes.
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Symbols occurring in the short story: The clues: The first, second and last letter of the name have been uttered they have symbolical meaning: 3 letters, misleading the fact that the last massage contains the last letter supposing there will be no more murdering. The map is another clue symbolizing the pattern the protagonist has to take in order to reach the antagonist. Coincidences between time and place: 3 crimes each on the 3rd of the month one after another, these three crimes each in the 3 different directional part: North, West, And East. These lead to a possible 4th crime and with the help of a compass the protagonist is able to localize the forth crime scene or at least suspects. The labyrinth: Triste Le Roy, the place where the protagonist gets lost, and the labyrinth symbolizes order and coherence but a false one, having the power to mislead, to trap somebody no escape. The compasses: they are the tools that Lonnrot uses to create the equilateral parallelogram which is a 4 sided shape and gives the precise location to the next crime scene. The compasses are abstract reasoning instruments. There are many other symbols like the Tetragrammatons, the Rhombuses or the (Harlequins) Hasidic Sect heresy but all these symbols enter under the clue symbolizing system, because they are all helping Lonnrot discover the pattern he must follow. Author Style As in the site: Poetry Foundation we can read: Jorge Luis Borges (18991986) Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges exerted a strong influence on the direction of literary fiction through his genre-bending meta-fictions, essays, and poetry. Borges was a founder, and principal practitioner, of postmodernist literature, a movement in which literature distances itself from life situations in favour of reflection on the creative process and critical self-examination. Widely read and profoundly erudite, Borges was a polymath who could discourse on the great literature of Europe and America and who assisted his translators as they brought his work into different languages. He was influenced by the work of such fantasists as Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, but his own fiction "combines literary and extra-literary genres in order to create a dynamic, electric genre," to quote Alberto Julin Prez in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Prez also noted that Borges's work "constitutes, through his extreme linguistic conscience and a formal synthesis capable of representing the most varied ideas, an instance of supreme development in and
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renovation of narrative techniques. With his exemplary literary advances and the reflective sharpness of his meta-literature, he has effectively influenced the destiny of literature."6 My opinion is that nobody could define the author Jorge Luis Borges any better. In conclusionwe can state that the short story Death and the Compass is one of the most famous story created by Jorge Luis Borges and even though there are many speculation about the fact that this story, the Death and the Compass is a magical realist short story or not, I say that it has the that magical element necessary to become a magical realist story, more over the fact that the author Jorge Luis Borges is known as a magical realism writer.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jorge-luis-borges

Quotations

This criminal (as so many others) had sworn on his honor to kill Lonnrot, but the latter had never allowed himself to be intimidated. Lonnrot thought of himself as a pure thinker, an Auguste Dupin, but there was something of the adventurer in him, and even of the gamester. (p 123) "There's no need to look for a Chimera, or a cat with three legs," Treviranus was saying as he brandished an imperious cigar. "We all know that the Tetrarch of Galilee is the possessor of the finest sapphires in the world. Someone, intending to steal them, came in here by mistake. Yarmolinsky got up; the robber had to kill him. What do you think?"(p 124) Dies Judaeorum incipit a solis occasu usque ad solis occasum diei sequentis. "This means," he added, "that the Hebrew day begins at sundown and lasts until the following sundown."(p 130) he repeated to me that famous axiom of the goyim: All roads lead to Rome. At night, my delirium nurtured itself on this metaphor: I sensed that the world was a labyrinth, from which it was impossible to flee, for all paths, whether they seemed to lead north or south, actually led to Rome, which was also the quadrilateral jail where my brother was dying and the villa of Triste-le-Roy.(p 135)

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Bibliography 1) Jorge Luis Borges, Death and the Compass (Jorge Luis BBorges- A hall s az irnyt, Elbeszlsek, 1998, Ed. Europai knyvkiad, Szekszd) 2) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/74100/Jorge-Luis-Borges 3) http://www.themodernword.com/borges/borges_biography.html 4) Theo L. D'Haen (1995) "Magical Realism and Postmodernism: Decentering Privileged Centers", in: Louis P. Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, Magical Realism: Theory, History and Community. Duhan and London, Duke University Press pp. 191208. 5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges 6) http://www.themodernword.com/borges/borges_biography.html 7) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jorge-luis-borges

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