Jorge Borges: Short Stories Lesson Plan

In “Menard,” why do you think Borges creates the character of the narrator and the conceit of correcting false views of a literary figure?

This question can yield a number of possible answers. Some include:

• It provides an opportunity to discuss Menard’s work and evaluate its merits, thus setting the story up for the punchline where Menard’s version of Don Quixote is proven to be exactly the same as the original, while somehow producing drastically different effect.
• It creates a sense of unreliability in the work, since the narrator is obviously biased in favor of Menard and thus may be including or excluding certain information in order to portray Menard in an attractive...