Although it is only about three pages long, there is quite a bit at work in JL Borges’s “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”. The narrator of the story is actually an author describing the construction of a separate story. The story he is describing is, I believe, fairly complicated in that it has history repeat history and, in a deliberate way, art.
While I am interested in discussing the mechanics of the story itself, the interview with Bernardi Bertolucci regarding his film The Spider’s Strategem brings up so much about the concept of adaptation that I would rather address that here. While his film was inspired by Borges’s story, he says: “The mechanism is very similar to that used by Borges but I’m not so focused on his very Borgesian reflection of the cyclical nature of things. The theme of the film is this sort of voyage into the realm of the dead,” (52). Bertolucci seems to have taken the plot that Borges set forth and has given it a new focus. He also uses the influences of painters Ligabue and Magritte, as well as American culture (Tera from Gone With the Wind). It could be said that he is adapting all of these art forms (painting, writing, etc) into his own work. It is probably best to use Dudley Andrew’s term “borrowing” for this sort of adaptation. At least, this is how it seems before watching the movie.
In addition, Bertolucci’s interviewer points out that the film DOES contain a cyclical return to things (as the Borges story does). The filmmaker claims this is simply because he was not in a period of neurosis while making the film (60). I wonder about this as well… is it possible to be inspired by “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” without cyclical-ness?
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There's no doubt that Borges was very interested in the idea of cyclical "eternal return." In addition to "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero," this idea is also present, for instance, in the "The Library of Babel." Moreover, he even wrote an essay on the topic titled "Circular Time," included in the "Selected Non-Fictions."
ReplyDeleteHowever, I can't help feeling that in "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" more important than this Nietzschean topic, is that of the potential equivalence of the hero and the traitor, or at least the undermining of the dichotomy. Another story in which a character undergoes a similar transformation from hero to villain is "The Shape of the Sword." The story is told as if "John Vincent Moon" is the hero of the story, again set in Ireland, but at the end we are told that he was actually the traitor. In "The Three Versions of Judas," Judas is shown to be true redeemer. In "The Theologians," the opposition between two early Christian Fathers, which culminates in the burning of one, is undermined when God confuses them with each other.