Jorge Luis Borges 'The Circular Ruins'

Life is the word to describe the adventure all humans go through; one simple word encompasses struggles, hardships, challenge, love, accomplishments, and joy. Life is complex with similarities between the lives of individuals such as childhood, relationships, children, and the wanting of true love. These “parts” of life tie all humans together as one, having a shared unity in humanity. In the supernatural short story “The Circular Ruins” by Jorge Luis Borges, a man struggles through his professed purpose of creating a son through dreaming; he faces failure, finds love, and the truth of himself presented in the context of a fantasy. Borges utilizes his work to present the complexity of the gray man despite being unreal, contrasts the two process

During the initial catastrophe where the first son is lost, the man “tried exploring the forest, to lose his strength,” but his efforts were “useless”; he eventually realized his creation was erased, crying “tears of anger [that] burned his old eyes”(Borges 1-2). The man’s scrabble to sleep, to be exhausted enough to combat his insomnia, expresses his dedication and determination to his purpose. He pushes himself to physical limitations in order to sleep, characterizing him as devoted, but also reveals his commitment to his unborn son. Additionally, Borges word choice and syntax of placing the word “useless” at the end of the sentence concretes the man's failure. Continuing, the inclusion of the man crying expresses his deep feeling of loss, disappointment, and resentfulness. Borges strong diction choice of “burned” adds imagery into the horrible physical effect of the tears which mirrors the interior emotion. The man is guided by a purpose which is supernatural, but he, like humans, must experience failure in order to appreciate success. Another side of the man is revealed when his son is not harmed by fire; as a father, “it was natural” he “should fear for the future of his son” who he dreamed “feature by feature” (Borges 3).

Despite the short story focusing primarily of the reality within the man's dreams, a concrete setting is given as “a temple which had been devoured by ancient fires” where the man awakens to realize “the men of the region had been spying” (Borges 1). Through the details of the setting, Borges confirms a true reality the man will always return to. Borges describes the enclosure as being “devoured” by flames, both personifying fire as ravaging while creating imagery specifically constructing a realistic depiction. Additionally, the village men confirms the presence of other living creatures besides the man who are not imagined, adding to the material setting. However, the ending of the story reveals the man is a dream, questioning where reality begins throughout. The men in a village are “real” but the wizard is not as he is in a cycle of dreamed people; how is there unreal aspects within reality? Similarly, the creation of the son is described as “in the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke” (Borges 2). Borges, within this instance, presents the confusion of where reality begins and dreaming ends. There is no concrete setting given as to where the son is being created and built, only the knowledge it is within the man’s mind. However, the son “awoke” but within “the