Discuss (herosim and Treachery) in Jorge Luis Borges' The Theme of the Essay

Discuss (herosim and Treachery) in Jorge Luis Borges' The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero,The Shape of the Sword - Essay Example He can be considered as a master of surrealist prose, and a literary genius. His works are abstract yet somehow always concretely themed and indisputably compelling. His stories characterize a holistic view of humanity and its endless struggle towards improvement while often altogether missing the point. Often his characters act completely focused on a specific problem or set of ideas, while Borges reveals to the reader that these ideas are superfluous and that the true meanings are hidden elsewhere. In his work, the themes of chaos and indefinite repetition work to establish themselves in universes where man's perception of reality, if not reality itself, works in a fundamentally different manner. The concepts he chooses to convey, on the other hand, are not usually apparent to the reader. Several attempts to understand are usually required for his message to our conscious minds. He made note of the fact that he excluded women from his texts, claiming that he did not understand women well enough to write about them. As masterful author, he used character and literary device to adroitly convey an important idea to any reader. While several examples lend themselves to this conclusion, the devices used by author most clearly illustrate that of a manipulative secret organization controlling the fate of society, and that of the coexistence and unification of the protagonist and antagonist. While these two specific and unusual themes are present in several works by author, a juxtaposition of the works will clearly show the dramatic difference present in the underlying themes. The image we get from Borges is of a random and often malicious organization that uses its calculative abilities to further whims and chance with little if any good for society as a whole. He even gives the impression that the rewards and punishments are in some sort of equilibrium and are designed to preserve the status quo. In "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" and "Three Versions of Judas," Borges presents two individuals struggling with the realization that our present-day conceptions of the past may be inconsistent with the actual truth. By undermining the traditional concepts of hero and traitor, as they are presented in historical and religious narratives, Borges calls into question the absolute faith with which people place their trust in what may amount to just another story. In "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero," The narrative begins suspiciously, setting the scene as "Poland, Ireland, [or] the Republic of Venice." The generalizing technique immediately universalizes both the story of Kilpatrick and the experience of Ryan the biographer. The narrator explains that "although [Ryan] is contemporary, the narrative related by him occurred toward the middle or the beginning of the nineteenth century." This comment serves as a subtle reminder that even Ryan's version of Kilpatrick's fall is subject to the same skeptical scrutiny as any historical account. As Shakespeare fictionalizes the death of Julius Caesar; Nolan plagiarizes the plays of Shakespeare in orchestrating his plan; and finally, as the gatekeepers of history record only the