Between dream and reality: absurdest study of the

circular ruins
Introduction:

Post modernism is a controversial and argumentative approach that was

prevalent since the mid twentieth century, it came against the ideas of

modernism approach. It was inspired by the aftermath of world war two

and was approached by many pioneers in philosophy and sociologist as

Jean Francois Lyotard who doubted the grand narratives and Jean

Baudrillard who developed the hyper-reality concept. So, people

became skeptic to the aspects of life as nothing in their life made sense

any more there were no safety or rational thinking of truth any

more.”postmodernism is to undermine western metaphysics, and the

destruction of the central arguments that dominated ancient and

modern western thought”(Elaati, 1). One of the schools that was

influenced by the ideas of post modernism is the school of absurd.

School of absurd is an approach shows that life is meaningless and pitiful.

“Absurd is that which has no purpose, or goal, or objective”(Esslin, 4).

also according to Albert Camus on of the pioneers in the school of

absurdity which said that absurdity is the divorce between the man and

his life , the actor and his settings. There are many features for school of
absurd, and the one’s that are going to be used in this research are form,

logic, rationalism, and plot. Moreover there is the short story “the

circular ruins” written by Jorge Luis Borges in 1940 and it talks about a

wounded foreigner fleeing to old circular ruins and when resting there

his wounds are healed, then he finds him self obligated to be sleep

which make the unnamed foreigner involved in some mystical

events.The circular ruins proposed some thoughts in the minds of the

readers, and this helps in generating formidable questions which is if

there is a deeper meaning to this short story after mystic and obscure

events that occurred to the unnamed character.

Methodology:

The paper will focus on four features of absurdity school in order to

answer the research question and shows how absurdity could lead to a

deeper useful meaning among mysterious events in the short story. The

first part of the study will tackle the first feature which is form by giving

its definition and how it is reflected in the story. Second, it will show the

concept of logic by defining it and representing how it is portrayed in the

work. Third there is the concept of rationalism that will be explained in

details and how it is depicted in the literary work of Borges. Fourth and

last feature is the plot which will be shown by mentioning and explaining

its details and how it has a significance in the short story. All this parts

are going to contribute to showing the effect of postmodernism in the

work.
Works cited

Elaati, Abdulazim Ali N. "Postmdernism Theory."

Esslin, Martin. "The theatre of the absurd." The Tulane Drama Review (1960): 3-15.