Thoughts on "Tema del Traidor y del Heroe" by Jorge Luis Borges

Not unlike the narrator in Cortazar's Blowup, the narrator of "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero"  feels the need to justify his telling of the story. Also similar to Cortazar's narrator, Borges' narrator's justification serves as a sort of validation of self. "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" illustrates Ryan's discovery of the secret truth behind his great-grandfather's assassination as he prepares to write his biography. His great-grandfather, Fergus Kilpatrick, was "a secret and glorious captain of conspirators...who perished on the eve of the glorious revolt which he had premeditated and dreamt of." The reader quickly learns the odd details behind Kilpatrick's untimely death: the conspirator was murdered in a theatre by a killer who has remained anonymous, in his pocket an envelope was found, still sealed, and in it, a letter warning Kilpatrick of his impending assassination, a mirror of the circumstances surrounding the death of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. To Ryan, these details reveal a "secret form of time" in which a sort of transmigration of souls has occurred. "Before having been Fergus Kilpatrick, Fergus Kilpatrick was Julius Caesar," Ryan suggests. Caught in a labyrinth of unanswered questions, Ryan finds his research has reached a standstill. "That history should have copied history was already sufficiently astonishing; that history should copy literature was inconceivable," he observes.

His investigation moves forward only after he comes upon a beggar who spoke with Kilpatrick on the day of his death and who uncharacteristically quotes "Macbeth." As history begins to unravel, Ryan learns that Kilpatrick had charged a co-conspirator James Nolan with the responsibility of finding a suspected traitor. Nolan later announces Kilpatrick as the traitor, presenting "irrefutable proof," and Kilpatrick is sentenced to death. Understanding the importance of Kilpatrick's image as a political leader, Nolan decides to take advantage of the situation by staging the death to appear as though his death was, in fact, committed by the government in response to his part in the revolution- a plan which Kilpatrick agreed to. His entire death was staged and went down in history just as Nolan had planned it. After uncovering this startling truth, Ryan is faced with the option of exposing his great-grandfather's story for what it was, though ultimately he decides to keep his heroic image intact and instead publishes a biography that agrees with Ireland's idolization of him.

Yet another story about truth versus perceived truth, I found this short story to be more interesting and certainly more cohesive (though the poor translation of Blowup probably accounts for that) than the last. I was immediately struck by the oddity of Kilpatrick indicting himself. The only explanation that I could come up with was the Kilpartick had planned it, not a difficult conclusion to come to, however I began to question the extent of Kilpatrick's foresight in the matter. So it seems that Kilpatrick chose James, knowing that he was capable of discovering, and revealing, him as the traitor. But what of the "irrefutable evidence?"

If Kilpatrick was truly the mastermind behind this, he must have planted the evidence himself, which means that he had to have had the foresight to predict that Nolan would uncover it, then condemn him to death and that Nolan would have the intellect and understanding to use Kilpatrick's death as political leverage to further the revolution. How plausible is this, I wonder. And was Nolan's literary inspiration a helpful coincidence? Or did Kilpatrick have the foreknowledge that Nolan was translating Julius Caesar? Could this have been what sparked the idea in the first place? Was it this play that taught him the power associated with this kind of death? I like to think of Kilpatrick as an all-knowing hero, who sacrificed himself for the country he loved. I think this is the end Ryan came to, as seen in his decision to preserve the heroic memory of his great grandfather forever.