Imagery In 'The Garden Of Forking Paths'

Another element that supports the idea of deficiency in “The Garden of Forking Paths” is fire and light imagery, which connects not only to parts of the story, but to the incomplete books previously mentioned as well because some have partly gone missing by burning up in flames. The character Stephen Albert is commonly associated with fire imagery; beginning with the first time Yu encounters him while the man is holding a blindingly bright lantern. This thread continues into Yu’s description of Albert:
His face was deeply lined and he had gray eyes and a gray beard. (95)
In this sentence, gray is symbolic of ashes, the remains of a fire. His gray hairs and facial wrinkles suggest Albert is coming to the end of his lifetime. However, the image of the “bronze

phoenix” suggests that something will rise out of Albert’s ashes, just like the mythical creature does when it is rebirthed from the remains of its predecessor. Finally, the manuscripts of the Lost Encyclopedia contain two examples of fire imagery. The example comes from the fact that the books are wrapped in yellow silk, which relates to the idea of fire, the sun, and the phoenix. The next example derives from the editor of the volumes, who comes from the Luminous Dynasty. Historically, luminous refers to the Ming Dynasty (Ming means bright or luminous in Chinese) and the third Ming emperor was Emperor Yongle. Only 3.5% of the original Yongle Encyclopedia’s manuscripts have survived several fires over the centuries and Albert happens to own pieces of them. Albert’s continuous associations with ashes, light, the phoenix, and fire strongly foreshadow his death at the end.
One can draw comparisons between T’sui Pên and the wizard, in addition to their stories, “The Garden of Forking Paths” and “The Circular Ruins.” In Ficciones, we learn that Pên went to The Pavilion of the Limpid Sun to write his novel and create his labyrinth, which is in the center of the garden.

Interestingly, the story in the middle of the collection titled “The Garden of Forking Paths” in Ficciones is “The Circular Ruins,” in which the wizard escapes to the ruined temple to dream. The Pavilion and the ruins are not only structurally parallel; they are thematically similar as well because both serve as places where Borges’ characters come to discover what they are missing. During his time at the Pavilion, Pên writes a complex and elaborate novel that aims to explain the realization he arrived at regarding the shape of time. At the end of his story, the wizard’s own state of being imagined is revealed to him as he steps into the fire and does not burn. Unlike the scorched books or the ashes the phoenix rises out of, the wizard does not go through the process of losing parts of himself. The wizard does not have remains because he is not human; conversely, he is the remains of another human’s

dreams.
In addition to the comparison of the wizard and Pên, the symbols in the story itself can affirm the deficiencies lying in “The Circular Ruins.” The temple the wizard arrives at is incomplete because the structure is in ruins, it is only the remains of the temple it once was, and it no longer serves the purpose of a temple because monks do not use it. However, this emptiness is exactly what the wizard needs because it is at these ruins where the wizard would find what he has been missing. Fire imagery appears later once the wizard begins working on his task:
In his almost perpetual vigil, tears of anger burned his old eyes. (59)
The wizard is angry because he has not yet discovered the key element to dreaming. The next time fire is referenced in the story comes after the wizard succeeds, when the God of Fire appears to grant the wizard’s dream the final missing piece: materialization. Later, after the son ventures out into the world, the wizard finds that:
His perceptions of the sounds and forms of the universe became somewhat pallid: his absent son was being nourished by these diminutions of his
soul. (62)
This quotation connects back to the phoenix because, as the wizard becomes weaker, his son grows stronger, as if the son came out of the wizard’s ashes. When the son steps into the fire and walks out unharmed, the wizard becomes increasingly worried that his son will discover that he is not real. This anxiety that the wizard is holding onto should fade away when the wizard walks into the “sheets of flame,” however he does not burn either, meaning that he too is the product of someone else’s imagination. This knowledge is what the wizard had been missing all along. What happens when the person dreaming him decides to stop dreaming? What are the consequences of the son being imagined by yet another imagined person? These questions are left unanswered, perhaps because they should lead readers to not only wonder about the wizard, but to wonder about themselves too and about what they know reality to be.