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Nationality is not intrinsically linked to character.

Although “The Garden of the Forking Paths” is a thriller following a spy in the midst of war—a type of story that often relies on seeing the spy’s side as morally superior—throughout the story Borges puts forth the idea that national origin does not determine one’s morals or character, or even necessarily their identity. The story includes characters from multiple nations, all of whom are at cross-purposes and who consider one another both allies and enemies, sometimes simultaneously. The main character, Yu Tsun, is Chinese and working for Germany, yet he finds Stephen Albert, an Englishman he deliberately kills in order to help the German cause, to be a noble man of great intellect. In contrast, he finds the Chief, his German intelligence boss, to be small-minded and prejudiced. He despises the man he works for, but praises the man he kills. Yu Tsun is motivated to help Germany not by a belief that Germans are superior to the British but in order to prove to the Chief, whom Yu Tsun describes as a “sick and hateful man,” that Chinese people are not inferior to Germans.

Albert’s devotion to Chinese culture also illustrates the idea that one’s national origin doesn’t dictate their values. Albert, an Englishman, finds great importance in Ts-ui Pên’s work. His library becomes a visual symbol of artistic and intellectual work transcending national boundaries, with its side-by-side examples of art and scholarship from both Europe and Asia. Albert’s respect for Chinese culture leads Yu Tsun to admire him greatly, even as he finds it necessary to murder the man in order to achieve his goal of passing information to Germany, a country he considers “barbarous.” Nonetheless, Yu Tsun compares the Englishman to Goethe, an intellectual giant of German culture, whom he respects. By making this cross-cultural comparison, and by juxtaposing the “sick and hateful” Chief with the respectable Goethe, Borges underscores the point that morality knows no nationality, and that the boundaries separating the characters are not as substantial as it might appear.

Political power struggles inhibit intellectual progress. 

Throughout the story, Borges demonstrates how quests for political power can inhibit intellectual progress. Yu Tsun’s work as a spy, which he finds degrading, destroys the scholarship of Stephen Albert and prevents the world from learning of Ts-ui Pên’s ideas about time. Yu Tsun disdains Germany while he admires Albert and is proud of Ts-ui Pên, yet his work for Germany brings an end to the intellectual progress of the men he reveres. When Yu Tsun comes to Albert’s garden and library, he describes himself as “cut off from the world,” showing that distance from the world of politics and power is necessary to create a sanctuary for Albert’s work. During the hour that he spends in Albert’s library, he feels a deep pleasure and sense of wonder, both at the surroundings and the ideas Albert shares. However, this is possible only until Madden appears in the garden, at which point the game of political power forces Yu Tsun back into his role as a spy. He kills Albert and destroys the sanctuary built by his scholarship because his work as a spy demands it, and intellectual progress cannot coexist with politics. 

Ts-ui Pên’s life also portrays the conflict between a life of political and social power and one of intellectual exploration. Ts-ui Pên was a powerful man, the governor of Yunnan, with a life Albert describes as filled with pleasures of the flesh and the mind, in addition to power over his people. However, in order to create his garden of forking paths, he had to renounce his power and its trappings, and retire to do nothing but think and write. In addition to giving up his power during his lifetime, he also lost his prestige in the time beyond his death, since his descendants dismissed his work as an unimportant failure. Borges implies that Ts-ui Pên’s work, like Albert’s, was ended by political intrigue in his death by assassination. This detail supports the idea that power and politics stand in the way of intellectual progress. 

Language can hide meaning.

Borges inserts darkly playful moments in the text to demonstrate how language can either intentionally or unintentionally hide meaning. Early in this story, the unnamed editor interrupts Yu Tsun’s text to take issue with his statement that hearing Madden speaking German in Runeberg’s office meant, in Yu Tsun’s words, that Runeberg had been “murdered or arrested.” The editor interrupts the narrative to vehemently argue that this statement is “malicious and outlandish.” In fact, he says, Madden had “appeared with orders for the spy’s arrest,” and, after he was attacked by Runeberg, had “inflicted wounds of which the spy later died.” The interruption is absurdly humorous, since the editor’s description and Yu Tsun’s are essentially the same: Madden, having discovered Runeberg’s identity, killed him. Although the editor claims it was self-defense, when established adversaries meet and one kills the other, murder is an appropriate descriptor.

Elsewhere in the story the use of specific words also obscures meaning. The bombing Yu Tsun’s actions make possible is lost to history until the time the correction that starts the story is published. Until his deposition is rediscovered, the only explanation given for the delay in the British offensive has been “torrential rain.” The story makes clear that “rain” is a euphemism for German bombs, possibly an attempt to hide the success of the mission from Germany whose meaning was later lost. Stephen Albert theorizes that the futile search for Ts-ui Pên’s labyrinth began with a misunderstanding of his words. Albert imagines him telling people that he was retiring to build a labyrinth and also that he was retiring to write a novel, accidentally giving the impression that they were separate projects. As with the torrential rain of military history, the literal meaning of his words hides their actual meaning until a scholar later uncovers the truth.

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