Free Will In The Garden Of Forking Path

A riddle is like a maze. It can hide our past and future, it can also force us to make choices, even if it ends up bad. Life itself is consider as a riddle, if we choose our path carefully while paying close attention to the pattern around us, we may get through the maze. When we finally makes a decision, it is like choosing a direction. In the short story “ The Garden of Forking Path” uses this “maze” to show infinite possibilities. The short story “ The Garden of Forking Path” show infinite possibilities because when Yu Tsun, a Chinese spy for the germans, arrived at Dr.Albert’s house. Dr.Albert told Yu Tsun about the novel that was written by his ancestor Tsui Pen, the novel is about a labyrinth of infinite ending . Dr. Albert gave two different ending to two different situation as an example. The first example that Dr. Albert gave was about a soldier that come to realize the lack of value in his life, as a
result the soldier fights with all his might and win the battle. In reality the soldier loses his self-esteem because he finds no sense in the war. To make it even worse, the soldier feel as if he was in the war because he was assigned to do so. The second example that Dr.Albert gave was that the soldier got through the war by remembering good time in his life. The time when he was happy and when he did not thought about death. In reality, the soldier found love and meaning in his life and win the battle. As Dr.
Albert tells Yu Tsun about the novel, Madden, a British agent shows up and was about to kill Yu Tsun. Yu Tsun quickly comes to reality and realize that the forking path was just part of his imagination and that no matter what path he takes, he must complete his mission, which is kill Dr.Albert. Yu Tsun shot Dr. Albert with his last bullet and successfully killed Dr. Albert. After succeeding in killing Dr. Albert, Yu Tsun was convicted to death by Madden. Because of this ending, it got many people start wondering, what if Yu Tsun did not shoot Dr.Albert, then what would happen, how would the ending be different and why did Borges, the author of the story,wrote this short story. Well, the answer to the question what would happen if Yu Tsun did not kill Dr.Albert, how would the ending change would be that the ending would mostly stayed the same. Yu Tsun would still be convicted to death by Madden, Germany would find a different spy to replace Yu Tsun, and then that spy would kill Albert, which will result German bombing the city known as
Albert.
Therefore Borges wrote this short story because he want to show us that every decision that we make, a new maze within us opens up. A maze where the compass points are lost, places that have never been seen, choices that can never be made, and path that lead you to the same place if you have an assigned destination.