Nas veredas do duplo: um olhar borgeano

Abstract

The interest of this thesis is to study the theme of the double in the work of the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. In order to delimit the research, we first chose the short stories "The Circular Ruins" (1942), "Borges y yo" (1960), "El otro" (1975), "Twenty-fifth of August, 1983", and with the progress of the research, we added to the body of the analysis "Pierre Ménard: author of Don Quixote" (1939) and "The word of God" (1949). The representations of the double in these narratives can be observed from certain angles of analysis that we proposed throughout the research. The Argentine writer recognizes in the subject of the double metaphysical questions of labyrinthine and infinite potential, and tells stories that make possible many forms of reading. We realised throughout the research that the themes of Borges' short stories are inspired by metaphysical hypotheses accumulated during centuries of history and philosophy, and in the theological systems that are the framework of several religions. Among the favorites are Kabbalah, Islam, Christianity, Occultism, Hinduism and Buddhism. As a theoretical path and in the face of Borges's appeal to the theme, we focused on the field of metaphysics and its perspectives, understanding that most of the time he does so in order to question it. The intention of bringing up these concepts is to relate the most diverse thoughts, histories, cultures and fictions with Borges' work. Beyond them, we also brought concepts of psychology and psychiatry, where the theme of the double can be analyzed directly or figuratively, mainly from psychological characters or conflicting contents, duplicated in the same subject: one conscious and the other unconscious. We worked psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank and with Jung's analytical psychology. We assumed that they are always hypotheses without a solution, and that is the less important. The purpose here is to challenge human questions in the form of parables and to think about them. We reinforced, in this sense, that the concepts presented in this thesis should not be understood as keys to reading-keys, but as a support for possible dialogues between so many worlds that Borges visited and presented us through his writings.