Of the five short stories we read for this week, I enjoyed Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Secret Miracle” the most. As a Jewish woman with family members persecuted by the Holocaust, I felt personally close to the story’s setting. It made me question how our perception of time changes in certain circumstances; for instance, when we are confronted with death, life feels like a day. The excess of terror and anxiety that pervaded the narrator’s final days on earth successfully culminated in the final bargaining with God and the story’s somber ending. I am interested in how God or other spiritual figures play a role in subverting our sense of reality.
“Azabache” was an interesting story that presented an alternative reality in…an alternative way, or a way that we haven’t dealt with yet. Throughout the story, the male protagonist conflates his wife’s identity with the animals she loves so much-horses. He is aware of her eccentric obsession with the creature and seems to lovingly tolerate it until she is drawn away from their home and away from him. The patriarchal conventions he tried to constrict his wife with ultimately led to her (and the horse’s) slow, sinking death. This story’s deviation of reality existed within the alternate lives the man and woman led. They experienced such different senses of reality – his, a domestic fantasy – and hers, a confined, joyless prison, that their shared relationship could only culminate in disaster.
The Secret Miracle also made me think about our perception of time. I find it interesting that while time seems to lengthen during important moments, like when we confront death or are in an important athletic event, it also seems to lengthen during very mundane events, like when you watch a glass fall of a table. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if there was a pattern to the events that make time seem to lengthen?
I also thought that the introduction of God into the Borges piece was especially significant in how the reader conceptualizes the story. Given that everyone’s understanding of God and religion differs so dramatically, the extent to which one believes in the story’s reality must vary significantly as well. The experience of a devout believer may vary wholly from my experience as an atheist. I perceived the story as the last living moments of a man, and a sort of perversion of the ‘life flashing before your eyes’ cliche. This again calls into question the divide between reality experienced by others and reality as an individual experience. However, for someone who is a very religious person, this story may be a testament to the ability of God. I think the addition of religion provided a really fascinating dimension to the perception of reality conversation that is already present within mystical realism.