Borges and The Library of Babel: hexagon-galleries of the structuralism and poststructuralism
Abstract
The work of Jorge Luis Borges is considered to be one of the influences that started postmodern literature in Spanish. In addition to the metafictional techniques and the use of irony, his tales contain features that came ahead of the time when many of these theories were developed. In the case of The Library of Babel, the story exposes a model of reality paralleled to the ones created by structuralists such as Saussure and Lévi-Strauss, and poststructuralists such as Derrida and Barthes. This library-universe functions as a whole system where everything is connected and linked through hexagon-galleries, establishing relations that go hand in hand with the structuralism proposals. Despite this apparent order and harmony, this place suffers from the defect of its immeasurable size, which leads to consequences that can be related to the poststructuralist critique towards the former movement.
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