Jorge Luis Borges Critical Essay | Critical Essay by David Laraway

Critical Essay by David Laraway

SOURCE: “Facciones: Fictional Identity and the Face in Borges's ‘La Forma de la Espada,’” in Symposium,Vol. 53, No. 3, Fall, 1999, pp. 151–163.

In the following essay, Laraway considers the implications of Borges's strategy of moving between first-and third-person narration in “The Mark of the Sword.”

A scar, as Homer knew long ago, is more than a distinguishing mark that permits one to be identified: it is the promise of a story to be told. Upon Odysseus's return to Ithaca, his old nurse Eurykleia, without yet recognizing her master, prepares to bathe his feet. Richmond Lattimore's translation renders the ensuing scene in these words: “Now Odysseus / was sitting close to the fire, but suddenly turned to the dark side; / for presently he thought in his heart that, as she handled him, / she might be aware of his scar, and all his story might come out” (Odyssey 19.388–91)....
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