SOURCE: “Borges ‘The Draped Mirrors,’” in The Explicator, Vol. 52, No. 3, Spring, 1994, pp. 175–76.

In the following note on “The Draped Mirrors,” Gonzalez describes how Borges uses the concept of narcissism.

Critics have associated Borges's use of mirrors in his short stories with ideas of representation and repetition.¹ Although the problematic relationship between mimesis and literature is a central element of Borges's aesthetics, the symbol of the mirror can also be given a different interpretation, one that is too often ignored: In some borgesian texts, mirrors can also be said to symbolize narcissism. In “The Draped Mirrors,”² for example, Borges uses the Narcissus myth as a subtext for his story. But Borges does not merely rewrite the Greek story using contemporary characters, he also distorts the original story and transforms it into an entirely different one. The final result, as we will see, is a new interpretation of narcissism.

In...