El Aleph is one of the most important and one of the few narrative stories of Borges, in which there are an extended plot and characters entering into dialogues with each other. Moreover, there is a combination of different themes, which gives reason to consider El Aleph a small story. The plot boils down to the fact that the narrator visits the house of his deceased lover once a year for many years until he finally becomes friends with her brother, a mediocre poet who composes a long poem describing the whole world. The narrator wonders how he succeeds – and it turns out that in their house under the stairs there is an aleph – an exit point into supra-space, from where you can cover the whole world with one glance (Borges 9).
Roberto Arlt’s El jorobadito, in turn, may be considered a loud proclamation of dissent against the societal postulates in Argentina in the 1920s. The author disagrees with “an exclusionary social model that profoundly affected politics and the organization of the social body” (Garrett 187). Arlt aims to determine dangers to society in order to overcome them. The plot depicts a man who has been imprisoned for killing a hunchback that embodies the bile and vices of society. The protagonist’s monologue shows that he had some rational reasons for it, and still people show him no mercy (Arlt and Wiseman 669).
At this point, in order to provide a comparison between these two works in a concrete framework, the essential of the Latin American boom should be given – in brief. One of the characteristics of the Latin American boom authors is the creation of fictional scenarios. They became symbols that explored the development of culture from a socio-political point of view. Also, unlike their previous generation based on realism, they explored Latin American reality through experimental narrative forms. This break with traditional aesthetics brought in several radical elements. Among other things, a common feature of this movement is the frequent use of magical realism. It’s about introducing supernatural or weird aspects into the narrative; without these elements, the story will be realistic. Then, the authors of the boom adopted the style and technique of contemporary European and American novels (Cohn 155-156). Thus, some of the methods used are the stream of consciousness, fragmented plots, and intertwined stories.
Hence, it seems visible that the described works of Borges and Arlt contain several characteristics of the boom and are reasonably considered as a literature prerequisite and predecessors of this boom. El Aleph combines the features of realism and fiction – or magical realism – which is a trait of the movement. Meanwhile, El Jorobadito seems to be more realistic but still provides a weird metaphorical component – the hunchback. Nevertheless, it might be assumed that the latter short story is closer to the core idea of the boom. It may be perceived as a reflection of the society of those times, expressing a significant protest against irrelevant and inappropriate social foundations.
No doubts that El Aleph contains a social message as well – given the story’s realistic background. However, the emphasis is rather on scientific and global cosmopolite issues than on political or social ones. In comparison with El Jorobadito, it seems to possess less potential to be considered as a part of the boom than a prerequisite to the latter. But it should be admitted that both stories consist of significant characteristics of the movement.
Works Cited
Arlt, Roberto and Sergio Waisman. “The Little Hunchback.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 56, no. 4, 2015, pp. 663–677.
Borges, Jorge Luis.The Aleph. MIT, 1945. Web.
Cohn, Deborah. “A Tale of Two Translation Programs: Politics, the Market, and Rockefeller Funding for Latin American Literature in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s”, Latin American Research Review, vol. 41, no. 2, 2006, pp. 139–164.
Garrett, Victoria Lynn. “Dispelling Purity Myths and Debunking Hygienic Discourse in Roberto Arlt’s “El jorobadito”.” Hispania, vol. 93, no. 2, 2010), pp. 187–197.