Essay on Central Themes in Jorge Borges 'The Secret Miracle'

Introduction

Borges has a style in his writing that makes his stories not easy to read. By this, the assertion is not that his language is complicated but you undoubtedly won't want to go through any of his narratives in a flash and 'The Secret Miracle' is no exception. However, this little hurdle is harmonized with loads of pleasure in the manner that his narratives stays in your memory after reading. To put it differently, his story is tiny and touching with a writing style so redolent and immersive that is difficult to recollect from the narration till the very end. In 'The Secret Miracle' a story is told of a Jewish writer Jaromir Hladik arrested by Nazi forces for the obvious reasons of being a Jew. He is sentenced to death by firing squad though he has not completed writing his play. He prays to God and asks for a year to finish the play before he dies. For a whole year, Jaromir lives frozen in time and completes writing his play. In the subsequent section, Borges brings forward the central themes of time, fiction, and reality. Borges interacts these themes which influence each other in putting forward the central message of the story that in life it is dreams that motivate people to achieve great things.

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The theme of time is central in shaping the narration of the story. This theme is evident all over the story and from it two others sprouts. To deal with this subject, the timing in the narrative is from some events that had occurred around sometime. It is time that connects all the parts of the story and the conflicts that ensue. Historical context is critical in the narration and throughout the story, there is a real change in the time where readers are taken to a different period. The Second World War was devastating, and people remember several horrific occurrences. Countless of people lost their lives including Jews who were subjected to genocide. This is what you expect to happen to Jaromir. Through time readers experience Jaromir realization that his life is coming to an end and his dreams to leave a legacy. The author defines emancipation through the examination of timeless dreams experienced by Jaromir. He dreams meeting God, and through one of his dreams, readers move from Prague to India. He asks him to grant him time to complete his play. A miracle happens when Jaromir is about to be executed, ".... His omnipotence had granted him the time" (93). Everything freezes.

In the context of what happens in his timeless dreams, the author brings another familiar theme of fiction. Several events in the story that occurs when Jaromir dreams take readers to a different space and time showing elements of fantasy. Unrealistic events arise that it is not possible to see in real life. Without his fictitious dreams and writings, the protagonist would not meet God or even experience the secret miracle. Borges quotes that, "God is in one of the letters on one of the pages of one of the 400,000 volumes of the Clementine" (92) The fiction here is that nobody has ever met God and no one is certain of His existence either. Jaromir is a writer preoccupied with a problem of leaving a legacy before his death and completing one last task of his career. He believes that the play is a legacy by which his life will be judged. The tricky element is that when the time freezes, he is paralyzed yet in this state, he manages to compose his work. His play is not written, but all of the details are just published somewhere in his mind. Besides, no one ever gets to know what Jaromir composed as it is transmitted to no one at all. The question here is who was even aware of his great work and who will judge on the legacy he has left. However, the assumption is that the legacy that he has left is probably in his self-satisfaction or from God, the granter of his wish. This element is puzzling, yet we see the protagonist achieving his dreams.

Not much deeper into the narration, it occurs clear how the theme of time historically rooted in the period during the world war and the subjective fiction that occurs in the protagonist experiences creates a subject of reality. There are several ways in which the narration presents a reality that happened during world wars. Much of the suffering that the protagonist went through are real things that Jews experienced during the world war period. In fact, the imageries are so precise that you wonder whether Borges was the victim. The nature of the reality of this story is reliable at the time. Equally, the dreams and the circular obsessions, his literature and the instances where time freezes create some suspended form of reality. All these elements are connected to the themes of time and fiction.

Conclusion

In summary, the themes of time, fiction and reality interact to bring the message of the story that dreams motivate people to achieve great things. Time influences most of the themes in the narrative since it is the most dominant. The subject of fiction is evident in the timeless visions experienced by the protagonist. The theme of time through the historical context equally takes readers to a time in history where they experience the reality of the world war. To sum up, it is evident that dreams steer people to greatness.

Works Cited

Borges, Jorge Luis. "The secret miracle." Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings. 1962. 88-94.