In The Library of Babel by Jorge Borges as well as S. by Doug Dorst, people and books are weaved together in inseparable ways. While The Library of Babel deals with more of a big picture version of people’s relationships with books and each other, S. provides in-depth characterizations as well as powerful relationships. Despite a major difference in how characters interact with each other and the rest of the world in these two texts, each story focuses on how people are deeply affected by books in both positive and negative ways. In each text, even though books are shown to be the determining factors of interpersonal relationships, people are still the main focus in both cases.
At the core of each story lies a strong sense of the human condition, …show more content…
After a while, it becomes clear that the handwritten notes between Jen Heyward and Eric Husch in the margins are from different periods of time, depending on what color of ink is used. Both Jen and Eric change slowly over the course of the book, and their transformations as people as well as their connections to each other are easier to notice in the margins. Whereas in The Library of Babel, its conciseness creates a type of distance between characters and readers, and even the main character remains unnamed. There are more layers of emotion revealed in S., while The Library of Babel laments the loss of human connections. The main character asks “You who read me, are you certain you understand my language” (Borges, 118). This question highlights how important understanding another person’s language is for the main character as well as how misunderstandings and disconnections could be seen as common in his world . However, The Library of Babel is still successful in making room for further thought on the subject matter as the content is open-ended and philosophical and nature, and this element elevates the emphasis on how people relate to one another through books and …show more content…
The Library of Babel is concerned with a large amount of people and even the main character is held off at a distance from the reader. However, S. explores deep relationships in ways that highlight how books have the power to either corrupt or bring people together perhaps forever. Both stories seem to have a similar purpose for readers to think about how books shape their own lives, and that it is humans who have the power to change how books shape them. The Library of Babel points out how only searching for wisdom in books can lead to the deterioration of mankind through neglecting how books are valuable for many things besides enlightenment, and S. illustrates how reading can change people’s relationships for better or for worse depending on how books are used. These texts are extremely important in showing how humans can change their situations if reading is used in more than one way instead of with one narrow-minded method. As blank explains in S., The fictional worlds inside books, as demonstrated in both S. and The Library of Babel, can only give a small piece of insight into humanity, and it is the readers who shape their own meanings and perceptions of the content by incorporating their own unique experiences into the
At the core of each story lies a strong sense of the human condition, …show more content…
After a while, it becomes clear that the handwritten notes between Jen Heyward and Eric Husch in the margins are from different periods of time, depending on what color of ink is used. Both Jen and Eric change slowly over the course of the book, and their transformations as people as well as their connections to each other are easier to notice in the margins. Whereas in The Library of Babel, its conciseness creates a type of distance between characters and readers, and even the main character remains unnamed. There are more layers of emotion revealed in S., while The Library of Babel laments the loss of human connections. The main character asks “You who read me, are you certain you understand my language” (Borges, 118). This question highlights how important understanding another person’s language is for the main character as well as how misunderstandings and disconnections could be seen as common in his world . However, The Library of Babel is still successful in making room for further thought on the subject matter as the content is open-ended and philosophical and nature, and this element elevates the emphasis on how people relate to one another through books and …show more content…
The Library of Babel is concerned with a large amount of people and even the main character is held off at a distance from the reader. However, S. explores deep relationships in ways that highlight how books have the power to either corrupt or bring people together perhaps forever. Both stories seem to have a similar purpose for readers to think about how books shape their own lives, and that it is humans who have the power to change how books shape them. The Library of Babel points out how only searching for wisdom in books can lead to the deterioration of mankind through neglecting how books are valuable for many things besides enlightenment, and S. illustrates how reading can change people’s relationships for better or for worse depending on how books are used. These texts are extremely important in showing how humans can change their situations if reading is used in more than one way instead of with one narrow-minded method. As blank explains in S., The fictional worlds inside books, as demonstrated in both S. and The Library of Babel, can only give a small piece of insight into humanity, and it is the readers who shape their own meanings and perceptions of the content by incorporating their own unique experiences into the