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Teachers' Resource Web Study Questions on Jorge Luis Borges from Ficciones "The Circular Ruins" 1. What is the significance of circles and fire in this story? 2. Why does the old man want to dream another human being? What will he accomplish thereby? 3. Why does he at first fail in his project? How does he eventually succeed? How does the Fire God help him, and on what condition? 4. When the old man succeeds, how does he react? What is his relation to the being he has dreamed into existence? 5. What is this story ultimately about -- Death? Our grasp of reality? Our relationship to other human beings and to the divine? Something else? "The Babylon Lottery" 1. Why, according to the narrator, did the Babylonians invite the lottery into the very fabric of their lives, their reality? Why, that is, are they so taken with the idea that chance should pervade their existence? 2. What is the history of the Company? (See 66-68 mainly.) How did the Company finally take all public power into its own hands? From what source did it derive its strength? 3. How reliable does the narrator seem in relating the story's events and the history of the Company? (See 70-71 especially.) 4. What conjectures do the Babylonians offer about the Company? Are any of them satisfactory? Why or why not? What do you suppose to be the Company's ultimate function -- or is it possible to say? "The Secret Miracle" 1. How does Hladik's reaction to his situation change from the time he first is taken into custody to the period after his death sentence has been pronounced? 2. Why does he want to finish his drama? Is it simply to stave off death, or is something different involved? 3. As with "The Circular Ruins," what is this story ultimately about -- Death? Our grasp of reality? The relationship between art and life? Something else? "The South" 1. Describe the effects -- physical and mental -- that Dahlmann's injury has upon him. (See pages 168-69.) 2. Why is the black cat important to the story -- what does Dahlmann say on pages 169-70 about the cat he strokes? 3. What questions emerge from pages 170-72 about whether Dahlmann's trip to his ranch actually occurs? 4. Explain, with reference to pages 171-end, how Dahlmann's trip is more than just a physical experience -- what is he traveling through and where is he going? 5. How does the story's title -- "The South" -- come into play as a theme? What has happened to Dahlmann's identity by the end of the tale? Edition: New York: Grove Press, 1962. Ed. by Anthony Kerrigan.
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