Reading El Sur: Existence and Essence

El Sur


El Sur: 

           http://azulejo.atspace.com/elsur.html
                                                                                                                                                     


<My Interpretation>

Existence precedes essence. However, it seems challenging for men to claim that they are completely free from various entities. Our instinct for survival restricts our decision; logical reasoning impedes us from doing what our emotion urges us. But still, we live on concurrent with the flow of time, and finally meet our destruction without seeing the true-self. However, Borges’s short story El Sur depicts a special man who breaks the chains and finds himself. While doing so, Borges shows how even this very different man goes through hardships while searching for the true identity.

Juan Dahlmann is a grandson of somebody. He works in a library some place. Nobody knows who exactly he is. One day, he happens to lay his hands on The Thousand and One Nights. Eager to read the book, he rushes up the staircase. Then, something brushes his forehead, and he is injured severely. The light thing that brushes his forehead can be thought as time. Although light and hard to detect, time is always concurrent with the life of men, and makes people drift away passively by it. Juan Dahlmann, just like any other man, does not actively respond to the harm that time has inflicted upon himself. He lies down in a hospital, kneeling before the power of time and others’ will.

This leads to the hatred of oneself. Juan Dahlmann, suffering from pain, becomes to reject his own existence: his body, his identity and even his beard. This is a loss against the fight in becoming a free individual. Juan Dahlmann is captivated by others’ will and bodily pain. This is a major flaw in his character, and can be realized as an obstacle that must be overcome through the story. Instead of realizing his existence by personality and individuality, he acknowledges himself from bodily pain. He again takes a passive position in realizing himself.

 However, Juan Dahlmann is given a chance to overcome his weakness. Just like at the staircase, he feels something light brushing by his forehead. This time, it is breadcrumb thrown by a bunch of workers. Dahlmann refuses to admit something has happened, and runs away from the ordeal. Again, the breadcrumb brushes his forehead. Then the shop owner calls his name and tells him not to fight. This is an important literary device in the story. Before the shop owner called Dahlmann’s name, Dahlmann was nothing but a plain traveler. However, after his name being called at, Dahlmann is a significant individual who can and should make decisions out of his free will. He decides to pick up the knife given to him and fight.

Of course, his instinct would have told him not to fight. By logical reasoning, he would have realized that it would be an unwise decision. Still, Dahlmann picks up the knife anyway because it is his decision to do so. Physical threat and even logic does not impede him from being himself. Unlike last time, Dahlmann actively responds to the inevitable death as a single individual with bursting freedom. Although instinct and reason is essence of men and all animal, men are special, for they have the potential for possessing free will.