Unreliable Narrator In The Book Of Sand, By Jorge Borges

In The Book of Sand by Jorge Borges, the first person narrative is used for three main reasons pertaining to unreliability: a singular narrator, the narrator lacks discernment, and it forms an emotional connection with the readers. Because of the singular narrator there are no other inputs of information and therefore readers only see one side of the story which is likely tainted by the narrator’s biases and opinions. Given that the narrator subtlety describes himself as unreliable, readers cannot take his word for absolute truth. First person narrators are often used to develop an emotional connection to readers because then it is easier to convince readers of the authenticity of a narrator that has dubious reliability. First person narrators are far more convincing because they are actually

The first reason he admits is true in the first paragraph. “To claim that is it true nowadays is the convention of every made-up story. Mine, however, is true” (Book of Sand, 1). The use of this line is to convince readers of the credibility of the concepts to be introduced later in the story. This in itself does not mean that he is an unreliable narrator, but it does influence readers into doubting him or assuming that there may be some statements that are less than truthful. Another example is his nearsightedness, the author uses the formal word ‘myopia’ which does retain the meaning of nearsightedness; myopia also has an alternative meaning of a lack of imagination, discernment, or intolerance. Generally when someone is lacking in an imagination it takes seeing a phenomenon to believe it, and yet they occasionally doubt what they have seen for numerous reasons. The narrator is shown that the book is indeed infinite but later ends up doubting the possibility of its infinite nature. Despite his erudition, he does have issues with discernment when it comes to the supernatural and seemingly