I read the works of Borges as wrestling with the category of ‘argentino.’ Who is the ‘argentino’? Where did he come from?
I believe that Borges is commenting on these questions in his short story, “El sur” and in his talk, “El escritor argentino y la tradición.” I concur with the intent that Patrick Dove raises in his article, to consider “the possibility that Borges’ text poses a question…concerning the absence of a clear definition of the political, and thus politicality at work in the processes of inheritance, interpretation, and definition itself” (62). The romanticized idea of honorable death presented through Dahlmann’s character in “El sur,” I believe, presents a reflection about the internal conflict that he [Dahlmann] has about his mixed identity, which relates to the larger discourse of identifying and describing who the ‘argentino’ as a category is in light of its contact with the European and the West as a whole. In other words, it is through these internal conflicts we find the frustration with the absence of a clear definition of the political that Dove describes—the phantasm.
The reflection on death in Borges’ work creates a very unique temporal space to problematize and question the identity and category of ‘argentino’ and its tradition. For Dahlmann, the threat of having his life taken away by force in the knife fight is a liberating experience for him, which I read as him uplifting his Argentine side as the honorable side of his identity in contrast to his passive German side. It seems to me that this presents the threat of forced erasure though, which I wonder why that may be significant in locating identity and tradition. Perhaps it is summed up by Borges’ argument that “nuestra tradición es toda la cultura occidental, y creo también que tenemos derecho a esa tradición, mayor que el que pueden tener los habitantes de una u otra nación occidental.” The category of death is a deeply political and theological notion that I think needs more unpacking. It seems to function want to function as a baptismal category, but is equally death-dealing—it baptizes as it erases.
Your use of Dove in Borges story is good. I wonder what you think, after our last class discussion about the ending- do you still think it is his "argentine", honorable side overcoming his German side? Did the class complicate this view?
ReplyDeleteI like this idea of a sort of reverse baptism in death. The pseudo heroic manner of Dahlmann's death is a baptism unto his Argentine side, a negation or erasure of his Germanness perhaps. In death he choses his identity in eternity not that which was chosen for him.
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in your comment that death "baptizes as it erases." The way Dahlmann chooses to die is connected with the way that his maternal grandfather chose to die, at the hands of Indians from Catriel. In this way, death is ritualized, much like a baptism or morbid right-of-passage.
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