The Aleph: An Analysis of Borges’ Masterpiece
“All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a shared past. How, then, can I translate into words the limitless Aleph, which my floundering mind can scarcely encompass?” — Jorge Luis Borges, El Aleph
In September 1945, the short story “The Aleph” was published in the Argentine journal “Sur”. It is written by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges to narrate his fictionalized character’s experience as he saw the Aleph, a point in space where all points in the universe can be seen. Reprinted as the title work of Borges’ 1949 collection “The Aleph and Other Stories”, it does not depict the usual rocket ships heading into space to venture into the mysterious vacuum where the Moon, the planets, the stars, and celestial bodies neither rotate nor revolve but a matter of literary craftsmanship to explore “infinity”. With its varying theme, the literary piece argues that the universe is ineffable, time is inexorable, experiences shape perception and rationality.
Written in the first-person point-of-view and the narrator as the main character, the fictionalized Borges witnessed the Aleph and found it as an “unimaginable universe” that cannot be described by language as it is infinite. According to the narrator, the Aleph is a “small iridescent sphere with unbearable brilliance” where all places on Earth can be seen from every angle without distortion or confusion, simultaneously. With this, the limitation of language was exploited as humans, as the author implied, had no capabilities of describing it as a whole. Applying the school of thoughts and ideas of the authorial theory, the writer wanted to convey the message that infinity is impossible to transcribe as it is limitless with the language being sequential while the Aleph is synchronous. Indeed, the task of translating infinity in a paper perfectly and well-versed is a miraculous act.
Moreover, the author used the word “I saw” almost forty times to comprehend the things perceived by his eyes such as nature, history, geography, astronomy, biology, and places that cultivated a long vivid paragraph to capture brief imagery of infinity and prove his bizarre experience.
Besides, if the language cannot describe nor comprehend the Aleph, human memory cannot retain it as well. After the author’s experience of seeing the inconceivable infinity, Borges shared he was scared as everything on the planet was familiar. Consequently, humanity’s nature of forgetfulness hit him.
Through the mimetic theory, the story imitates the reality about time as it naturally passes-by like the memories that slowly fade away. In the conclusion of the story, the narrator even questioned his reality of seeing Aleph in the cellar. Borges wrote that the human mind is “porous and forgetfulness seeps in”, with him forgetting the physical features of his love interest Beatriz Viterbo as years move past.
In addition, in the early part of the short story, readers can realize how deep Borges loves Beatriz Viterbo. Since she died in 1929, the narrator never let a thirtieth of April go by without visiting the woman’s residence in Garay Street. It looks awkward yet it rewarded him the chance of cherishing the memories of Beatriz through her photographs. Sadly, the author itself stated that slowly, even the physical features of the woman he loves is wearing away.
As a product of the magical realism movement said to begin in Latin America, there is no doubt that “The Aleph” was set in the streets and sights of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires. Along with Borges’ inclusion of short narratives or descriptions about true-to-life literary arts such as the Hamlet and Leviathan, not only shows his philosophical or scientific approaches in writing fiction but made the short story realistic for the perception of the readers.
The Aleph in Borges’ literary work may be fictional yet its real-life symbolism has been unveiled in the whole short story. In the postscript on March 1, 1943, the author explained that the Aleph is a religious and mathematical symbol that represents “origin” and “infinity”. Both concepts are dominantly present in the piece. More particularly, the Aleph or “Alef” is the Hebrew alphabet’s first letter and in Jewish Kabbalah, it is the “En Soph” that signifies the nameless being called “YHWH” who created the world. In his first set theory article in 1874, Georg Cantor outlined that the Aleph is the representation of transfinite numbers.
On the other hand, using the biographical approach, it can be deduced that some events in the story are actual experiences Borges went through. For example, the narrator and reader was shocked as Carlos Argentine Daneri, whom the narrator despises for the arrogance of his poetry, won the Second National Prize for Literature. Borges quoted in the story that “dullness” reigned again refreshing his memories as way back in 1942, his anthology The Garden of Forking Paths did not win the prestigious accolade as the National Commission for Culture (NCC) indirectly but accused the author of being an Allied sympathizer despite the country’s support for Roman Castillo’s fascist government. In fact, the surprising scene was Borges’ bitter remarks against NCC whose objective is to promote art, instead, it became a slave of the government for upholding its ideology. Indeed, the political atmosphere in Argentina during that time shaped Borges’ perception.
“The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges is a well-written masterpiece as it shows and explains the mysterious realm of the universe that the human mind cannot easily nor impossible comprehend as aligned with scientific theories. Also, the short story proves that time can change humanity unconsciously as well as let the readers understand how external factors like politics can create a lasting impression among the wilderness of minds writers have. Indeed, the Aleph is a representation of how unpredictable, indescribable, and unconscious life can be for the human-animal as unseen forces move him/her.
