Orge Luis Borges’ Short Story Death and the Compass

In Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “Death and the Compass”, there are two main characters -Lцnnrot and Scharlach- that are by and large ascribed as two sharply opposing figures. However, if one analyses the story in detail, he would easily see that these characters share a lot of common features in their personality and way of thinking as well as some of their personal background; though one is an detective and the other one is a gangster. Both Lцnnrot and Scharlach share the same part of the body if we look at the situation from a Janusian point of view, in which there is one body, one head but two faces. Those two faces, one looking at the sunrise while the other looking at the sunset, are Scharlach and Lцnnrot in this story (Sturrock 59).

The God Janus (the god of duplicity) has a deep impact on the story. The symmetry this god shows is present in the villa of Triste-le Roy (Borges 138). This villa plays a great role in the understanding of the two similar antagonists of the story (Ostergard par 24). The synchronized villa we are told in the story has got many mirrors