Jorge Luis Borges Analysis

Visualize a single, hard-working farmer for an entire village of people. The farmer plants their crops diligently over a grueling span of time, and eventually, from letting the seeds grow in the soil, they are able to harvest their produce. They could keep the food for themselves, but over time, the farmer feels the desire to share their crops with the villagers instead, in order to bring strength and a feeling of connectedness to their community. The farmer in this situation should be cautious; if they give away the entirety of their food and are left with no crops for themselves, they will starve. This, in essence, is the predicament many artists find themselves in; losing everything they have for their private selves, by giving everything

Subsequently, they take these once-private concepts and put them on display for all to see. The audience of their art is strengthened and revitalized in a variety of measures: anything from a feeling of solidarity where they once felt alone, to gaining a new philosophy that guides them through their lives. The unfortunate and unintended consequence of putting all of oneself into their work, however, is watching their personal life deteriorate as they borrow more and more from this private world, leaving little to keep for their personal self.
In Jorge Luis Borges’ short essay “Borges and I,” this tormentation that the artist endures at their own hand is explored in depth. Borges explains the divide of personal self and public persona in “Borges and I” by describing himself as two separate entities. One of these entities, whom he addresses as Borges throughout the piece, is the side attributed to his public work. The other, his personal self, is the narrator of the

Borges proceeds to acknowledge that he does not feel invalidated in letting this transaction of private-to-public occur when he claims, “It would be an exaggeration to say that ours [the relationship between his public persona and his private self] is a hostile relationship.” Instead, Borges asserts that writing his literature “justifies” him. He explores this idea by paraphrasing Baruch Spinoza’s claim that each thing strives to persevere in its being (158), alluding to the idea that by writing his work and contributing to the art form, he is persevering as a human, and thus feels justified.
Furthermore, Borges explores the idea that since each person is “destined to perish,” the one thing that could carry his legacy beyond his lifetime would be what survives through his writing. Thus, due to the human obsession of avoiding their own impermanence, Borges uses his artform as a “loophole” out of inevitably passing away and having nothing to show for his existence. Borges’ writings, in a sense, extend his lifetime. Borges sums this up beautifully by saying that “everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.” Hence, by being an artist, he is simultaneously suffering and justifying his