The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges Book Analysis

Taking place during World War I, Borges’s “The Garden of Forking Paths” focuses on a German spy, Dr. Yu Tsun who must find a way to communicate the name of the British artillery park to the Germans. With several ways of doing so, Borges’s work poses the question whether or not Dr. Tsun went about accomplishing the mission in the right way as his work includes the image of  paths and Dr. Tsun facing consequences in the end. 

From the beginning, Borges hints at Dr. Tsun’s future through foreshadowing. One of the first scenes Borges includes is Dr. Tsun hearing Captain Richard Madden’s voice in his comrade’s apartment. After hearing his voice in the apartment, Dr. Tsun concludes his comrade must be dead and acknowledges “before the sunset that day” (119)  he will “face the same fate” (119). Furthermore, Borges alludes to the specific way Dr. Tsun will die by including Dr. Tsun’s thoughts of how his neck “hungers for the rope” (120).  Additionally, another example of foreshadowing appears when Borges indicates how Dr. Tsun will accomplish the mission when Dr. Tsun picks up the revolver to give himself courage. 

After the scene with the revolver, Dr. Tsun opens a phone book and finds a man named Dr. Steven Albert residing in Ashgrove. Dr. Tsun then sets out to Ashgrove with his revolver, intending to kill him. When he arrives there, a boy gives him directions to Dr. Steven Albert’s house. The boy specifically tells him to “turn left at every crossing” (122) which Dr. Tsun connects with the “common way of discovering the central lawn of a certain type of maze” (122). By incorporating the image of a maze, Borges reminds the readers of the maze trapping Dr. Tsun who struggles to find the proper way to conduct the mission. 

After following the boy’s instructions, Dr.Tsun comes to a fork in the road where he hears music and travels toward it. As he does so, he approaches Dr. Steven Albert who asks him if he wants to see the garden of forking paths. Dr. Tsun agrees to see the garden and talks to Dr. Albert of his ancestor, Ts’ui Pen.  After seeing the garden, they start reading Ts’ui Pen’s paper about his garden of forking paths. The two discuss the contents of the paper. During the discussion, Borges uncovers the meaning behind the forking paths image, mentioning the infinite amount alternatives there are. More specifically, he mentions how every decision leads to a different event and how the first choice always impacts the next. The discussion of decisions and the influence they have on one another serves as a reminder of the multiple ways in which Dr. Tsun could have gone about executing the mission. Although he had an infinite number of ways to approach it, the sequence of steps he took led him to accomplish the mission in this way. The last decision Dr. Tsun faces is whether he shoots Dr. Albert.

Although Dr. Tsun is mindful of the consequences, he decides to fully execute his plan and shoots Dr. Albert. As soon as he does, Captain Richard Madden comes in to arrest him and as Borges hinted at in the beginning of the story Dr. Tsun is sentenced to hang.