Borges and War
I was wondering why Borges chose to write his story with the context of an Irish-English conflict as opposed to an Argentine conflict, as I'm sure it would be fairly easy to adapt to any war. I looked to see if there were any major conflicts that he might have been involved in or witnessed (keeping in mind this was written in 1944), and found that there had been failed rebellions in Argentina in 1890, 1893, and 1905. Then, in 1955, there was a successful overthrow of the government. While it's possible Borges was just interested in European affairs and wars (he did live in Switzerland and travel quite a bit), perhaps his focus on a failed rebellion was inspired by those of his country in the past. He might not have been too popular with the government if he romanticized the failed Argentine revolutions, but writing the story about another country was acceptable. Even though it was 10 years before the revolution, I think it is a fair assumption that some of the Argentinian people, Borges included, were not very fond of their government. This poem may be an indication of that.
I think part of this is story regards some of the assumptions/stereotypes that people have of different cultures. We discussed several instances of English/Irish stereotyping, and there is also hints that Borges thinks that all men are similar, and by assumption, all cultures. Maybe by writing about another culture, he substantiates this point even more by saying these things happen halfway across the world.
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