Sight Read of Jorge Luis Borges

We looked at Labyrinth's by Jorge Luis Borges, and even after the first read, we could easily understand that multiple worlds existed at the same time within this narrative. For instance, the narrative opens with the first point of view, and from here, we are informed that the narrator is a slave in Babylon. Then, from this point, the narrator informs of the lottery system in Babylon, and I would argue that the lottery system is linked to the slavery system. The lottery system may even be the slave system. If one aspect of the story seems obvious here, I would argue that it is the fact that one world builds off of another.

To elaborate on my point above further, the slave world is linked to the lottery world just like the lottery world is linked to the company and so on. A hierarchical system exists of some sort, and at the root of these worlds is somewhat of a universal truth. I would argue that the universal truth here is people's greed for power. Borges writes, "The system was elementary, as you can see. Naturally these 'lotteries' failed. Their moral virtue was nil. They were not directed at all of man's faculties, but only at hope." (Borges 31) I underlined this quote in my reading because it applies what we discussed in class about narrative worlds. Mainly, most of us realized that these worlds do not have to make sense; they do not even have to fit together in any particular way, but these worlds are always unified somehow thematically, and in this instance, I would argue that the theme is the narrator's voice. The narrator cautions against people's greed. I may be doing what Abbott talks about in this week's reading here; I may be filling in the gaps to overread or underread this piece, yet nevertheless, there seems to be an underlining universal truth here that readers can identify with: one man's greed, leads to another man's greed, and as the chain continues, the society is doomed.