24 pages • 48 minutes read
Jorge Luis BorgesThe Aleph
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1945A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Aleph
The Aleph is a symbol of infinity and omniscience. Described as “a small iridescent sphere of almost unbearable brightness” (129), the Aleph frees viewers from the limits of their perception by allowing them to see all of space from every angle at once. While the namesake item is not introduced until late in the story, its impact on the narrative exists throughout. The Aleph was the initial muse to Argentino, reveals the powerful truth about Borges’s beloved Beatriz, and gives important insight into the infinity of space and the eternity of time. Ultimately, it is a source of disappointment. It reveals to Borges that Argentino was a rival for Beatriz’s affection. The knowledge it offers is unwanted. Furthermore, perfect knowledge of the present does nothing to prevent the memory of Beatriz from fading. Perhaps to quell his despondency, the narrator expresses doubts about the Aleph, stating, “Incredible as it may seem, I believe that there is (or was) another Aleph; I believe that the Aleph of Calle Garay was a false Aleph” (132).
The Photographs of Beatrice Viterbo
The many photographs of Borges’s deceased love interest are a motif that illustrates the story’s themes concerning Perception and Reality, Literature and Representation, and Space and Time. The images of Beatriz glimpsed during the first visit to her family’s home are noticeably different than the single image of her Borges later sees during his final visit. Of this image, he says: “Beside the flowerless vase atop the useless piano smiled the great faded photograph of Beatriz, not so much anachronistic as outside time” (128). While the other photographs enhance Borges’s feeling that Beatriz is fading with time, this image somehow stands outside of change and temporal flow. The description sets up the dramatic events in the cellar. Argentino says, “Go on down; within a very short while you will be able to begin a dialogue with all the images of Beatriz” (128). The vision in the Aleph marks the passage of time by way of her decline, culminating in Borges’s seeing “the horrendous remains of what had once, deliciously, been Beatriz Viterbo” (130). Significantly, these images are the work of Argentino. In this understated way, he expresses his affection for her, affection not fully ascertained until the end.
The Cellar
The cellar symbolizes life’s unexpected miracles. Part of the power of “The Aleph,” and Borges’s work in general, is the contrast of sublime and banal elements operating in proximity. Argentino describes first encountering the Aleph as a child, having snuck down the basement stairs. And when the doubtful Borges asks him whether the cellar will be too dark to see anything, Argentino replies, “Truth will not penetrate a recalcitrant understanding” (127). After all, since it contains “all places,” the Aleph would be filled with all sources of light. This miraculous entity exists in the tiny, dark cellar of a small apartment next to a bar.
Certain of his host’s mental health condition, and suddenly fearful for his own safety, Borges nonetheless proceeds with the instructions Argentino gives him to “Stretch that great clumsy body of yours out on the floor and count up nineteen steps” (128). The darkened cellar, described by Borges as “barely wider than the stairway […] more like a well or cistern” (128), indeed holds the light of infinite space that Borges, though initially doubtful, is able to glimpse. This object of extraordinary beauty and power exists not in a church or museum but in a cramped, ordinary cellar.
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By Jorge Luis Borges
