Point of View

Many of the author's stories are in the first person point of view. In fact, a classic set-up of Borges' stories is to have a narrator introduce a story, for example someone on a journey, and then another person will tell a story in the first person point of view. This is the case in the story "The Shape of the Sword" where the narrator is on a trip through the Argentine pampas, and stops at the ranch house of "the Englishman" who tells about the history of his scar. Other stories are in the third person point of view, usually centered on one person as the protagonist. Some of the most interesting stories depict conversations at a dinner table or elsewhere between two or more people. In the funny story "Averroes Search," in the third person viewpoint, Averroes is described struggling with the concepts of...