A BRIEF OPINION ABOUT JORGE LOUIS BORGES' SHORT STORY: THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS

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Diah Ayuningtyas
04.13 PM
December 12, 2016
Tangerang Selatan, Banten

The Garden of Forking Paths’ background setting was during the first world war, where the war between German against British had to be postponed caused by the torrential rains. Yu Tsun was the main character of the story, He was known as the former professor of English and worked as the secret agent for German army. Yu Tsun was in England, he has a duty for his job as a spy, but the British know his plan. The Captain Richard Madden, who was the intelligent of England, arrested and murdered Yu Tsun’s colleague. Yu Tsun knew it when he called his colleague, he heard and recognized the voice of Richard Madden. In worried, he scared that he cannot accomplish his duty by possessed the Secret because he has mocked Richard Madden and he thought that Richard was pursue him.

The name of the secret was the location of the British artillery park on the River Ancre, he has to carry the name to the ear of his Chief in Germany. Yu Tsun had to flee from the Richad Madden, he went to station that not far from his home and he was going to the  village of Ashgrove, he saw Richard Madden in the station. The train stopped in the middle of the fields, people told his it was Ashgrive, he got off. He got questioned by the boys about Stephen Albert’s house and they gave a direction to the house, Yu Tsun followed the direction.  The boys told him the instructions to turn always to the left reminded him about the procedure for discovering the central point of certain labyrinths. This understanding he got because he was the great grandson of Ts’ui Pen, who was the governor of Yunnan, Ts’ui Pen wrote a novel and construct a labyrinth in which all men become lost. Ts’ui Pen was murdered, the novel was incoherent and no one found the labyrinth.

Yu Tsun arrived at the house, a tall man opened the door, he was Stephen Albert and he offered him if he want to see the garden of forking paths, the garden of his ancestor Ts’ui Pen. They came to a library and Yu Tsun knew that he was a sinologist. in the library, Albert showed the book of Ts’ui Pen and told Yu Tsun that the labyrinth was only a symbol. Everyone imagined the two works of Ts’ui Pen, but the labyrinth was never exist, and the novel was the labyrinth itself. Stephen Albert has examined the novel and found the truth, he said that it was the chaotic novel, the Garden of Forking Paths was forking in time not in space. In all fictional work, each time a man confronted with several alternatives, he have to eliminate the others and choose one. In the length discussion with Albert, Yu Tsun saw Rchard Madden walking along the path and he needs to sent the message, he chose to use his only one bullet to shoot Stephen Albert.

My interest in this short story is with the symbol “labyrinth”. The story feels like a maze for the raeder. The symbol of the labyrinth in this short story occurs in many layer, so the meaning also as infinite as the forking path Ts’ui Pen’s novel. In physical, the labyrinth was the garden that surrounded Ts’ui Pen’s house, the childhood playground of Yu Tsun and the other labyrinth was on Albert house that imagined as an infinite maze. It was implicitly related with Yu Tsun’s, which wanted to accomplish his duty but he did not know how to did it. As Albert said in the story: “Two circumtances could gave me the correct solution of the problem. One: The Curious legend that Ts’ui Pen had planned to create a labyrinth which would be strictly infinite, the other: the fragment of a letter I discovered.” In my view, this can be correlated with how was Yu Tsun solved his problem, the first circumtance that Yu Tsun experienced was when his friend was murdered by Richard Madden and the second circumstance was by discovered another way to flee from Richard that finally brought him to Stephen Albert’s house and finally he found the secret, it was Albert. Yu Tsun was a spy, his intuitive was not weak, he could find the answer for the riddle by arranging the fragment of the clue. He knew that Albert was the secret name of the city that German must attack.

            The goal of Yu Tsun in this story is actually not only to accomplish his works but also to prove to his Chief that the Yellow man can be a spy, can save the armies. It written explicitly in the story “I did not do it for Germany, no. I care nothing for a barbarous country which imposed upon me the abjection of being spy.” Because this object he had a desire to reach his goal, but Richard Madden was the opponent in the way Yu Tsun reach his goal. 


 


Location: Pondok Karya, Pondok Aren, Indonesia

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