The South By Jorge Luis Borges
“The South” by Jorge Luis Borges portrays the life of Juan Dahlmann, a librarian from Buenos Aires, wherein a sequence of unfortunate events brings him, eventually and triumphantly, to the South. But the story might be as mundane as Dahlmann’s northern life without its stunning conclusion: rather than living happily in the South like he’s always longed for, Dahlmann willingly dies the first night he gets there. Dahlmann dies just before his promised life can even begin, yet he finds joy in it. His bizarre mindset, then, demands explanation and exploration. Dahlmann, in fact, in his journey falsely sees the sustenance of his romantic, “profoundly Argentine” dream—courage and freedom—in the savagery and resignation of the real South, thereby
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tragically pursuing his demise as if it were his dream (Borges 25). The train that takes him to the South thus takes the story into a fantastic duality, made out of the real South and Dahlmann’s delusion, where Dahlmann dies—also dually, as a martyr to his dream and a victim of passion. Dahlmann’s tragedy is but the poetic justice of a dreamer who dreams too blindly and is perhaps symbolic of the death of that old, romantic Argentine culture described by Domingo Sarmiento.
The South in Dahlmann’s passionate dream is a place of identity and romantic values. Dahlmann’s dream stems from his ancestry, described as such: one of his grandfathers was a “minister of the Evangelical Church” and the other a soldier who “died on the border of Buenos Aires from a spear wielded by the Indians under Catriel” (Borges 25). The latter’s is much more vivid, including even details like “Catriel”, suggesting his importance to Dahlmann. Dahlmann is in fact captivated by this “romantic ancestor, or that of a romantic death” who is “romantic” presumably because of his pride and courage as a soldier, romantic values which Dahlmann admires (Borges 25). The South, where his romantic grandfather used to live, is, to Dahlmann, a symbol for the grandfather and his heritage. This association gives rise to Dahlmann’s idyllic dream of the South, a place of the romantic values, by which he lives so passionately and blindly—not only does he own the house in the South that used to belong to the grandfather, hoping to truly live his dream one day, Dahlmann’s South represents his identity, as just like it, his “profoundly Argentine” identity is also based upon ancestry, on “an old sword, a locket containing the daguerreotype of a bearded, inexpressive man” (Borges 25).
Dahlmann’s South and its values are further substantiated in opposition to those of the North. The North is physically where Dahlmann works and lives, the city of Buenos Aires, and mentally portrayed as a place of identity crisis, fear, and restriction, as enacted in the sanatorium: though Dahlmann is cured of his illness there, he suffers many symbolic miseries. Right after he wakes up from the operation, he finds himself “in a cell much like the bottom of a well” (Borges 25). The word “cell” implies that he is trapped in the sanatorium like a prisoner in a jail. It’s a metaphor for the restraints the northern society imposes. Then Dahlmann is in a state of self-loathing over his identity. It’s a reflection of the identity crisis in the North, which relates back to his entry into the sanatorium, when “his clothes were stripped from him, his head was shaved” (Borges 25). His clothes, items representing individual taste, being “stripped” from him is perhaps symbolic of how the North forcibly deprives people of their identity. Finally, Dahlmann cries after hearing about his proximity to death. His fear is perhaps indicative of the prevailing vulnerability in the North. Not only do those qualities intuitively opposite the romantic values of the South, the fact that Dahlmann defines his South as the negative of the North is strongly implied in his second and very last (first-person) thought: “They’d never have allowed this sort of thing to happen in the sanatorium” (Borges 27). Dahlmann is, in his final moments, rationalizing his “choice” to enter the duel and die. Thus, this strange final thought is revealing of his values, which are, as established, those of his South. These southern values are the opposites of the ones that are “allowed” in the “sanatorium”, the North: hence they are—precisely—individualism, bravery, and freedom.
However, Dahlmann’s glamorous dream is nothing more than a nebulous illusion. The first sign that suggests his dream’s lack of credibility is, ironically, in the very explanation of how it comes about: “the joy and courage of certain melodies, the habit of certain verses in Martin Fierro, the passing years, a certain lack of spiritedness, and solitude” (Borges 25). The origin of Dahlmann’s dream is described through a series of abstract nouns that merely enumerates relevant items. While these words seem sensible, they do not constitute a coherent explanation at all. The repeated uses of the word “certain” only add to the uncertainty of the diction, since they replace concrete accounts. As the foundation of Dahlmann’s dream is weak, the dream itself, his South, is necessarily also dubious. In fact, the South of his dream is, in many cases, drastically different from the reality of the South. The most striking example is that of the gaucho. Gaucho in his vision is a “symbol of the South” and possesses the romantic qualities (Borges 27). In reality, the gaucho he meets is rather pitiful, as described in the following: “on the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water… He was small, dark, and dried up, and he seemed to be outside time, in a sort of eternity” (Borges 27). The gaucho is physically and mentally atrophied. His body is “small” and fragile. Mentally, the South has “worn” his character away through the years so that his spirit is dulled and made “smooth” and ambivalent, and he is “dried up” as if his soul is squeezed out. Not only does the real gaucho not possess the characters Dahlmann envisions, he possesses no humanity at all: he is a “motionless” object, part of the eternal nature, that “curled against the bar” like the cat in the café earlier. The gaucho, in reality, is neither the romantic man in Dahlmann’s dream nor a symbol of his South. In fact, he reflects the decadence of the real South—its idleness and resignation—which only further shows how delusional Dahlmann’s idyllic dream is.
The journey in the South happens in the duality of Dahlmann’s dream and the reality, where he dies both as a hero and a victim.
After escaping narrowly from death, Dahlmann goes on a train ride heading to the South. Though the vacation is intended as a break from his old life, Dahlmann can’t seem to truly escape his memory. He is “two men at once”: while physically free and “gliding along through the autumn day”, Dahlmann is mentally trapped and reliving the horror of being “imprisoned in a sanatorium” (Borges 26). The astonishing duality of Dahlmann’s character indicates his alarming mental detachment from the physical reality and foreshadows the duality of the ensuing narrative. As Dahlmann almost realizes himself, “he was traveling not only into the South but into the past”: Dahlmann, being so engrossed in his mind and detached from the reality, superimposes his past and his dream of the South with the real South. His experience in the South, then, is (partially) imaginary and constructed from his dream, which in conjunction with the reality gives rise to a fantastic duality of the South. This fantastic South, a place of interplay between reality and fiction, is exactly where the story takes place. Often the reality and Dahlmann’s conception are aligned, almost as if the story takes place entirely within Dahlmann’s imagination, e.g., when Dahlmann enters a store that looks like his own red house and meets its owner whom he mistakes for an employee at the sanatorium. Nevertheless, his encounter with the gaucho exemplifies the duality clearly: though the gaucho is in reality weak and meek, as discussed earlier, Dahlmann is “warmed by the rightness of the man’s hairband, the baize poncho he wore” (Borges 27). He is “warmed” by the “rightness of the man” since he projects onto the real gaucho, or rather the gaucho’s appearance and clothing, his own conception of romantic gauchos and is then glad to have finally confirmed their existence (self-deceivingly). Indeed,
it’s also within such duality that Dahlmann dies. The “young thug” who provokes Dahlmann is merely a brute, speaking “curses and obscenities” (Borges 27). However, Dahlmann, in his delusion, falsely sees the courage of his South in the brutality and immaturity of his enemy and, perhaps, the real South. As one who lives by his dream, Dahlmann believes then that accepting the man’s challenge and returning the courage, even if it means certain death, is not only a duty but also an opportunity. He believes that dying in a “knife fight under the open sky, grappling with his adversary” is a “liberation, joy, and a fiesta”—an affirmation of his dream and, by that, himself (Borges 2). Thus, in this fantastic South, Dahlmann contentedly and, he believes, heroically gives up his life for, in reality, nothing of worth.
Likewise, in the fantastic South, Dahlmann is both a free man and a prisoner to fate. As the narrator says early on, “fate can be merciless with the slightest distractions” (Borges 25). The act of “distraction” and, by that, a temporary escape from one’s own life is seen, in the story, as an act of defiance toward fate. Dahlmann, as a dreamer, challenges his fate, the invisible course of life, for his own vision. Arabian Nights, a book of tales, is his distraction of choice. Fate indeed punishes Dahlmann for the disobedience, but apparently to no avail. Dahlmann thinks, after defeating fate, that traveling with his Arabian Nights, the symbol of his defiance, is a “joyous, secret challenge to the frustrated forces of evil”—the “forces of evil” is fate, which he has supposedly defeated by surviving the illness it imposed (Borges 26). Dahlmann fights against fate for the constraint it imposes and likewise envisions his South as a place of freedom, but the real South is hardly free from fate. In the duality of the South, Dahlmann believes that he is finally free and that he dies by his own volition, while in reality he has resigned to fate and is brought to death by it. After the storekeeper’s intervention, Dahlmann "sensed that the man's conciliatory words actually made the situation worse” (Borges 27). The fact that “sensed” is a passive verb implies that Dahlmann is, at this critical moment, merely reacting to the circumstances, to his fate, rather than making up his own mind, like he otherwise believes. His passivity, in fact, shows his acceptance and resignation to fate. And when the old gaucho tosses Dahlmann a dagger which he picks up instinctively, the narrator says that “it was as though the South itself had decided that Dahlmann should accept the challenge” (Borges 27). The decision to enter the duel is made by the gaucho, the storekeeper, the South—anything but Dahlmann—in a word, his fate. Hence, in the fanciful South, Dahlmann “firmly grips the knife” and willingly “steps out into the plains” without a shadow of doubt about his freedom, not knowing that he is only walking on the path set by fate all along (Borges 27).
Dahlmann’s demise is the result of his overly passionate dream that makes him lose sight of the reality. One can only wonder if Dahlmann, the dreamer, ever wake and imagine his reactions should he find out the awful truth. Regardless, his death is fascinating and impactful, making “The South” a thought-provoking piece.
tragically pursuing his demise as if it were his dream (Borges 25). The train that takes him to the South thus takes the story into a fantastic duality, made out of the real South and Dahlmann’s delusion, where Dahlmann dies—also dually, as a martyr to his dream and a victim of passion. Dahlmann’s tragedy is but the poetic justice of a dreamer who dreams too blindly and is perhaps symbolic of the death of that old, romantic Argentine culture described by Domingo Sarmiento.
The South in Dahlmann’s passionate dream is a place of identity and romantic values. Dahlmann’s dream stems from his ancestry, described as such: one of his grandfathers was a “minister of the Evangelical Church” and the other a soldier who “died on the border of Buenos Aires from a spear wielded by the Indians under Catriel” (Borges 25). The latter’s is much more vivid, including even details like “Catriel”, suggesting his importance to Dahlmann. Dahlmann is in fact captivated by this “romantic ancestor, or that of a romantic death” who is “romantic” presumably because of his pride and courage as a soldier, romantic values which Dahlmann admires (Borges 25). The South, where his romantic grandfather used to live, is, to Dahlmann, a symbol for the grandfather and his heritage. This association gives rise to Dahlmann’s idyllic dream of the South, a place of the romantic values, by which he lives so passionately and blindly—not only does he own the house in the South that used to belong to the grandfather, hoping to truly live his dream one day, Dahlmann’s South represents his identity, as just like it, his “profoundly Argentine” identity is also based upon ancestry, on “an old sword, a locket containing the daguerreotype of a bearded, inexpressive man” (Borges 25).
Dahlmann’s South and its values are further substantiated in opposition to those of the North. The North is physically where Dahlmann works and lives, the city of Buenos Aires, and mentally portrayed as a place of identity crisis, fear, and restriction, as enacted in the sanatorium: though Dahlmann is cured of his illness there, he suffers many symbolic miseries. Right after he wakes up from the operation, he finds himself “in a cell much like the bottom of a well” (Borges 25). The word “cell” implies that he is trapped in the sanatorium like a prisoner in a jail. It’s a metaphor for the restraints the northern society imposes. Then Dahlmann is in a state of self-loathing over his identity. It’s a reflection of the identity crisis in the North, which relates back to his entry into the sanatorium, when “his clothes were stripped from him, his head was shaved” (Borges 25). His clothes, items representing individual taste, being “stripped” from him is perhaps symbolic of how the North forcibly deprives people of their identity. Finally, Dahlmann cries after hearing about his proximity to death. His fear is perhaps indicative of the prevailing vulnerability in the North. Not only do those qualities intuitively opposite the romantic values of the South, the fact that Dahlmann defines his South as the negative of the North is strongly implied in his second and very last (first-person) thought: “They’d never have allowed this sort of thing to happen in the sanatorium” (Borges 27). Dahlmann is, in his final moments, rationalizing his “choice” to enter the duel and die. Thus, this strange final thought is revealing of his values, which are, as established, those of his South. These southern values are the opposites of the ones that are “allowed” in the “sanatorium”, the North: hence they are—precisely—individualism, bravery, and freedom.
However, Dahlmann’s glamorous dream is nothing more than a nebulous illusion. The first sign that suggests his dream’s lack of credibility is, ironically, in the very explanation of how it comes about: “the joy and courage of certain melodies, the habit of certain verses in Martin Fierro, the passing years, a certain lack of spiritedness, and solitude” (Borges 25). The origin of Dahlmann’s dream is described through a series of abstract nouns that merely enumerates relevant items. While these words seem sensible, they do not constitute a coherent explanation at all. The repeated uses of the word “certain” only add to the uncertainty of the diction, since they replace concrete accounts. As the foundation of Dahlmann’s dream is weak, the dream itself, his South, is necessarily also dubious. In fact, the South of his dream is, in many cases, drastically different from the reality of the South. The most striking example is that of the gaucho. Gaucho in his vision is a “symbol of the South” and possesses the romantic qualities (Borges 27). In reality, the gaucho he meets is rather pitiful, as described in the following: “on the floor, curled against the bar, lay an old man, as motionless as an object. The many years had worn him away and polished him, as a stone is worn smooth by running water… He was small, dark, and dried up, and he seemed to be outside time, in a sort of eternity” (Borges 27). The gaucho is physically and mentally atrophied. His body is “small” and fragile. Mentally, the South has “worn” his character away through the years so that his spirit is dulled and made “smooth” and ambivalent, and he is “dried up” as if his soul is squeezed out. Not only does the real gaucho not possess the characters Dahlmann envisions, he possesses no humanity at all: he is a “motionless” object, part of the eternal nature, that “curled against the bar” like the cat in the café earlier. The gaucho, in reality, is neither the romantic man in Dahlmann’s dream nor a symbol of his South. In fact, he reflects the decadence of the real South—its idleness and resignation—which only further shows how delusional Dahlmann’s idyllic dream is.
The journey in the South happens in the duality of Dahlmann’s dream and the reality, where he dies both as a hero and a victim.
After escaping narrowly from death, Dahlmann goes on a train ride heading to the South. Though the vacation is intended as a break from his old life, Dahlmann can’t seem to truly escape his memory. He is “two men at once”: while physically free and “gliding along through the autumn day”, Dahlmann is mentally trapped and reliving the horror of being “imprisoned in a sanatorium” (Borges 26). The astonishing duality of Dahlmann’s character indicates his alarming mental detachment from the physical reality and foreshadows the duality of the ensuing narrative. As Dahlmann almost realizes himself, “he was traveling not only into the South but into the past”: Dahlmann, being so engrossed in his mind and detached from the reality, superimposes his past and his dream of the South with the real South. His experience in the South, then, is (partially) imaginary and constructed from his dream, which in conjunction with the reality gives rise to a fantastic duality of the South. This fantastic South, a place of interplay between reality and fiction, is exactly where the story takes place. Often the reality and Dahlmann’s conception are aligned, almost as if the story takes place entirely within Dahlmann’s imagination, e.g., when Dahlmann enters a store that looks like his own red house and meets its owner whom he mistakes for an employee at the sanatorium. Nevertheless, his encounter with the gaucho exemplifies the duality clearly: though the gaucho is in reality weak and meek, as discussed earlier, Dahlmann is “warmed by the rightness of the man’s hairband, the baize poncho he wore” (Borges 27). He is “warmed” by the “rightness of the man” since he projects onto the real gaucho, or rather the gaucho’s appearance and clothing, his own conception of romantic gauchos and is then glad to have finally confirmed their existence (self-deceivingly). Indeed,
it’s also within such duality that Dahlmann dies. The “young thug” who provokes Dahlmann is merely a brute, speaking “curses and obscenities” (Borges 27). However, Dahlmann, in his delusion, falsely sees the courage of his South in the brutality and immaturity of his enemy and, perhaps, the real South. As one who lives by his dream, Dahlmann believes then that accepting the man’s challenge and returning the courage, even if it means certain death, is not only a duty but also an opportunity. He believes that dying in a “knife fight under the open sky, grappling with his adversary” is a “liberation, joy, and a fiesta”—an affirmation of his dream and, by that, himself (Borges 2). Thus, in this fantastic South, Dahlmann contentedly and, he believes, heroically gives up his life for, in reality, nothing of worth.
Likewise, in the fantastic South, Dahlmann is both a free man and a prisoner to fate. As the narrator says early on, “fate can be merciless with the slightest distractions” (Borges 25). The act of “distraction” and, by that, a temporary escape from one’s own life is seen, in the story, as an act of defiance toward fate. Dahlmann, as a dreamer, challenges his fate, the invisible course of life, for his own vision. Arabian Nights, a book of tales, is his distraction of choice. Fate indeed punishes Dahlmann for the disobedience, but apparently to no avail. Dahlmann thinks, after defeating fate, that traveling with his Arabian Nights, the symbol of his defiance, is a “joyous, secret challenge to the frustrated forces of evil”—the “forces of evil” is fate, which he has supposedly defeated by surviving the illness it imposed (Borges 26). Dahlmann fights against fate for the constraint it imposes and likewise envisions his South as a place of freedom, but the real South is hardly free from fate. In the duality of the South, Dahlmann believes that he is finally free and that he dies by his own volition, while in reality he has resigned to fate and is brought to death by it. After the storekeeper’s intervention, Dahlmann "sensed that the man's conciliatory words actually made the situation worse” (Borges 27). The fact that “sensed” is a passive verb implies that Dahlmann is, at this critical moment, merely reacting to the circumstances, to his fate, rather than making up his own mind, like he otherwise believes. His passivity, in fact, shows his acceptance and resignation to fate. And when the old gaucho tosses Dahlmann a dagger which he picks up instinctively, the narrator says that “it was as though the South itself had decided that Dahlmann should accept the challenge” (Borges 27). The decision to enter the duel is made by the gaucho, the storekeeper, the South—anything but Dahlmann—in a word, his fate. Hence, in the fanciful South, Dahlmann “firmly grips the knife” and willingly “steps out into the plains” without a shadow of doubt about his freedom, not knowing that he is only walking on the path set by fate all along (Borges 27).
Dahlmann’s demise is the result of his overly passionate dream that makes him lose sight of the reality. One can only wonder if Dahlmann, the dreamer, ever wake and imagine his reactions should he find out the awful truth. Regardless, his death is fascinating and impactful, making “The South” a thought-provoking piece.