The Garden of Forking Paths | Themes

The Garden of Forking Paths Themes

Time

Dr. Stephen Albert tells Yu Tsun, "The Garden of Forking Paths is an enormous riddle, or parable, whose theme is time. . . ." Likewise, Borges seems to be implying that the major theme of the short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" is also time.

Yu Tsun reflects early in the story, "everything happens to a man precisely now. Centuries of centuries and only in the present do things happen. . . ."

With this, Yu Tsun describes time in a linear manner. That is, humans experience time as a series of present moments, one following the other. As soon as the moment is experienced, however, it no longer exists. On account of this, the past is no more real than the future. Both exist nowhere but in the human mind: the past belongs to the realm of memory, while the future belongs...
(read more)