El Sur

Full story

English: http://azulejo.atspace.com/elsur.html

Spanish: http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/cuentos/esp/borges/el_sur.htm

Summary

A proud Argentinian man, Juan Dahlmann, works as the secretary of a library. His paternal grandfather had been a minister, while his maternal grandfather had died at the hands of an Indian while fighting for Buenos Aires. Years of working at his job caused a boredom that drove him to identify with the nationalism and romantic death of his maternal grandfather. Juan Dahlmann owned what remained of a pretty ranch in the south of Argentina, and he looked forward to one day living there. But in February of 1939, something happened to him.

Dahlmann somehow manages to obtain an old copy of One Thousand and One Nights, and he is so excited that he runs up the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. Before  he reaches his destination, he thinkst he sees a bat or a bird brush against his forehead. He pays it no attention, but when he reaches his destination he sees the look on a woman’s face, and he touches his forehead. Blood is tricking down, and he realizes that he bumped the corner of a door with his forehead. He has One Thousand and One Nights-themed nightmares, and wakes up in a hospital. Friends and relatives visit and insist he looks fine. For eight days of hell, he stays in the hospital. One afternoon a new doctor appears, and they take Dahlmann to perform more tests on him. He begins to acknowledge and loathe his vulnerability as a human. More time passes, and a surgeon informs him that he had nearly died from septicemia. In a few days, Dahlmann is told that he can soon leave to rest at his ranch.

Dahlmann thinks to himself that the south is like a more ancient Argentina. He drinks a coffee in a cafe, thinking that humans understand the past, present, and future, while animals only understand the present. He boards the train and takes One Thousand and One Nights from his bag, but finds himself distracted by the sights of the waning city, and he gives up on reading. He watches the suburbs give way to the country, seeing dirt roads and ranches and horsemen. He goes to sleep.

When he awakens, it is already getting late in the day. He notes that it seems the train is changing; outside, the land seems untouched by humans. The emptiness makes Dahlmann think that perhaps he is traveling not just into the south, but also into the past. The railroad inspector tells him that he will be getting off at an earlier stop that Dahlmann is not familiar with.

The train stops at sunset at a station that is nothing more than a platform and a shed. He walks toward a store and inn located ten or twelve blocks away. He thinks he recognized the shopkeeper, but realizes he resembles a nurse from the hospital.

Some men are eating a drinking at a table. Dahlmann notes an old man sitting in the corner, seemingly immune to time. He’s dressed like the gauchos of old.

Dahlmann eats. He feels something hit his facee; one of the men had thrown a spitball at him. He ignores it, but they continue. The shopkeeper tells him not to worry, using Dahlmann’s name even though he’d never been told. Dahlmann confronts the men. One of them shouts insults and challenges him to a knife fight. The gaucho throws him a dagger, and Dahlmann takes it, knowing he has no chance in a knife fight. He thinks that to die in a knife fight would be a much better death than dying in the hospital, and he follows the men outside, clutching the knife.

 

Analysis:

From the very beginning of the story, we can see the trouble of Juan Dahlmann–he leads a dull life, but he aspires to live romantically, like his grandfather who died in battle.

In the hospital, Dahlmann’s eyes are opened to how he has been spending–almost wasting–his time with such a boring job in the city. He is ashamed to realize how weak and vulnerable he really is. He realizes he could have easily died in the hospital, without having lived any of the life he hospital.

While Dahlmann travels south, he notes all of the the strange changes outside. He notes the ancient-looking buildings, and the quaint villas. The landscape then regresses to the state it had been in before humans had settled. In the store, he sees what he believes to be a gaucho–a South American cowboy that hadn’t been prevalent for many years. It’s as though Dahlmann is actually traveling into the past.

As he contemplates how his knife might end in the knife fight, Dahlmann thinks of how much he desires a romantic death, especially compared to the shameful death that almost took him in the hospital. He says that if he could choose or dream his death, it would be this one. The story has an open ending, so we don’t really know what happens to Dahlmann.

Many interpreters (myself included) believe that the part of the story that takes place after Dahlmann leaves the hospital is some sort of a dream. Dahlmann makes it very clear to the reader that he desires a romantic death, and the second half of the story is his mind’s attempt to validate himself.  He couldn’t bear the shame of dying weak in the hospital, so he created his alternate reality to console himself. Further supporting this theory is the way Dahlmann seems to magically travel into the past when he travels south, to a time where he can have the romantic death he so desired.

 

Important Vocab:

One Thousand and One Nights – Las Mil y Una Noches

hospital – el sanitorio

ranch – la estancia

railroad car – el coche

store – el almacén

shopkeeper -el patrón

spitball – la bolita de miga

knife – la daga