Anachronism in ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’

Anachronism in ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’

The book ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’ by Jorge Luis Borges is a short narrative where the writer continually plays with fallacious attribution and anachronism deliberately to investigate recursive time and metaphors of labyrinths. The story involves an English Chinese professor (Doctor Yu Tsun), who is currently in the United Kingdom when World War 1 is taking place. Tsun mirrors Ts’ui Pen, who is his great ancestor and had governorship to focus on the labyrinth and to work on his novel. Although Ts’ui Pen died before completing his book, Doctor Albert indicates that contradicting drafts left by Ts’ui Pen on mistery of his lost labyrinth, and the chaotic nature is similar. In the book, Borges tries to show the nature of reality, time, and space as domains with several possibilities. He mentions that all decisions made in had an outcome in the future connected to all precedents. As a result, history is incomprehensible, and it is impossible to know the future. In the book, every truth has a predecessor in history that is unnoticeable at the time but disclosed in one of the prospects (Naseri 62).

The anachronism present

Throughout the narrative of Borges’ the First Person’s opinion is presented as deposition through a captured spy (Balderston 3). Hence, the story is split between two-time scenes, the scene when the narrator is captured, summoned for information, and convicted to death, and the time locus when a series of even actually occur based on his discovery and ending up to his seizure (the primary action of the narrative). Dr. Tsun reveals that he is a Chinese Spy serving the Germans during World War 1, and upon discovery that his contact has been murdered, he plans how to deliver an essential message to the Germans. After a quick look in his telephone book, he finds the right name (Stephen Albert ) to contact to give the news to his leader on the strategic intelligence of their enemy. “In ten minutes, my plan was ripe. The telephone book gave me the name of the only person able to communicate the information: he lived in a suburb of Fenton, less than half an hour away by train” (Borges 119).

On arrival at Dr. Albert’s place, he is mistaken for a Chinese man visiting to have a view of his garden. Tsun recognizes that Albert is a sinologist (a student learning Chinese culture). By Coincidence, Albert’s garden is similar to Tsun’s ancestor, and he indicates to have found the solution on the lost Labyrinth riddle. Besides, he pulls a letter from his drawer that says the book itself is the labyrinth, and the theme behind the parable is time. Tsun requests to see the note once more, and when he notices Madden (Englishman working for Irish intelligence) approaching, he fires his gun and kills Albert. In the last lines of Tsun’s statement, he is in the gallows awaiting death as a penalty for his crime (Borges 121). This part presents a structural prolepsis consisting of two periods (time of the narrator and the time that the narrated take place) appearing simultaneously or parallel in the narrative.

Analysis of the Anachrony

The structural prolepsis evident in the scene in the fictional form shows the prevalence of anachronism in the narrative. Advancement made in telecommunication plays a crucial function in revealing the changes and experiences of time. The past, present, and future, which was perceived as the logic of succession, are now viewed as the image simultaneity. This shows that the current poetic has considered time as the modern at the forefront of the narrative by increasing experiments on the temporal order of actions to take the form of a story (Singh and Marandi 291).

The reality of the narrative seems to be in a fact of eternal dimensions of time. Besides, the ending of the scene where Albert is killed presents the need for another version of the narrative, which includes various possibilities. Therefore, the present reality is only divided by time from an infinite number of facts. The letter that Albert had stated: “I leave to various future times, but not all.” The Garden of Forking paths describes the time Albert tries to put forward that; Ts’ui Pen’s perception of time is different form Schopenhauer and Newton, who perceive time as the same and absolute. According to Ts’ui Pen time involves infinite series which diverge and come together once again. Other times the multiple times move parallel to each other (Balderston 6).

This explains that despite the character’s doing, their destiny is already planned. As Tsun indicates, “the future is as irrevocable as the past” (Borges 122). In the last scene of the story, Tsun admits to having killed Albert as a way of sending a message to the Germans. By executing a man named Albert, he communicated to the Germans of the town they needed to bomb. Killing a man of the same name without any malice, Tsun was convinced that the information would be presented in the newspaper, and the Germans would have the opportunity of viewing. The message reached the Germans since the city was bombed before Tsun processed his statement (Singh and Marandi 295).

Importance of the Anachromy to Reader’s Interpretation

Though the particulars of the events are not fully revealed to the reader, a sense of anticipation is initiated through two suggestions, which show that the unfolding of the planned activity will happen in the presence of moral ambiguity and excessive danger. By the readers noticing this anachronism, it becomes more comfortable for them to communicate an image of a different reality, which for this case, is filled with tensions and insecurities. Besides, readers are pushed to recognize their significance in bringing out the meaning from a complex picture in a story. After Tsun comes up with the plan, he states that” I am a coward. I can say that I have carried out a plan whose dangerousness and daring no man will deny” (Borges 120). This makes the reader anticipate that the actions will take place through calamity and insecurity.

Borges’s work challenges the expectation of the reader after reading the scene. Soon after the reader thinks she has understood the story, the footnotes reorganize the view. Borges places his story in a nonfictional report (Baroni 249). For instance, footnotes can suggest that Tsun admitting to having Killed Dr.Albert is not honest. Also, the story elaborates on the topic of order and disorder. Albert is convinced that he has solved the parable of the chaotic novel and lost the labyrinth. He explains that the book itself acts as the labyrinth, and it was an attempt by the author to show how time webs. Moreover, he brings out the order from disorder when he states that “I have compared hundreds of manuscripts, I have corrected the errors that the negligence copyist has introduced, I have come up with a solution of this chaos, and I have made an original draft” (Borges 116). This reveals the aesthetic order in the world in artistic form.

Furthermore, the moral behind ‘The Garden of Forking Heads’ extends the text itself to the real world. The character of Yu Tsun mirrors to the readers the ambiguities and complexities that they encounter in their reality. Since he is the one directing the story, his role becomes a metaphor for the governing voices that are currently in the live world (Kritikos 179). Therefore, readers tend to associate Yu Tsun to their relationships and realities based on the comprehension of their act of reading. Besides, by reading the statement of Yu Tsun, his moral obscurity becomes a critical challenge for the audience (readers). His narrative is filled with deceit and honesty, and therefore, the reader has to choose whether to search for the meaning between his words, or believing what he utters at face value.

In summary, Borges reveals the factiousness at the center of the narrative. The story based on Albert indicates an infinite number of futures where most are contradictory. According to Ts’ui Pen, all outcomes in the future or present are preceded by an action in the past. The presence of structural prolepsis advocating the increased prevalence of anachronism in the narrative shows how ‘there’ and ‘then’ have effects of ‘here’ and ‘now.’ On the other hand, the method of storytelling adds on the aesthetic nature of the novel, which expounds outside the text to the live world (reality) of the reader.