Why We Care About Whales By Jose Luis Borgess Analysis

Do you ever hear a song, are certain of its title and artist, only to quickly discover that it is another entirely? It leaves you wondering, ‘how could I mistake this song for one so vastly different? Are the notes the same? Is there some commonality that I have previously ignored?’ Sometimes this creates a new understanding of the song, adding a layer of meaning that seems unrelated, but manages to add depth and dimension. A similar pattern can be found in literature where two essays of diverging topics can find commonality in a key concept. While Marina Keegan’s struggle to understand herself in “Why We Care About Whales” seems incongruous with the metaphorical difficulties that perplex Jorge Luis Borges in “Borges and I,” their ideas interlock to form a greater picture about the core question of human existence: Who am I, and should I want to know?
Most people think that a key goal in life is to understand why one acts a certain way or feels
He begins by separating himself into two distinct personalities: Borges, a writer who appears to the other persona as “vain” and an “actor,” and I, the person who is slowly becoming a shadow of his former self in his attempt to bolster the Borges character (Borges 157). The I, unlike Keegan, however, understands why he is giving away most of his being to Borges. He only remains alive so that Borges may write and Borges’s writing is what “justifies” him (Borges 157). This understanding is a double edged sword. A cognitive dissonance is dealt with, but this understanding has caused him to become robotic because he knows that “these pages cannot save [him]” (Borges 157). He has “tried to free himself from [Borges],” but because he cannot recognize himself, it has become impossible to disentangle the two characters (Borges 158). His life is no longer his, and that understanding has made him a hollow, lifeless being who “walk[s] through the streets...mechanically” (Borges