Something that seemed really interesting to me in our last discussion in class about the story "The South" was the idea of the countryside representing the past and the city representing the present. Borges makes note throughout the story that "The South," or the countryside, makes up the past. While Juan Dahlmann is traveling to his house in the country he watches as the city slowly fades away until he is in the countryside where the gaucho lives and the way of life there is very different. He see's different things in nature that he doesn't normally see and it captivates him. Growing crops was a way of life in the countryside where it isn't in the city, and that fact he knows nothing about it forces him to think of it in an unfamiliar way. One of the greatest reminders that emphasize that the countryside is in the past is the use of physical violence to solve disputes. In the cities, things are settled more diplomatically with the outside forces making decisions, but the countryside is forced to settle disputes however they can best do that, and physical violence was most often chosen. Juan confronts the men that were taunting him verbally, and they in turn challenge him with physical violence. It wasn't in Juan's way of thinking to immediately start with physical violence, but it is for the men from the countryside. Violence and brute force are connected with the past because they were old ways of maintaining control and keeping order, but in the current time people had been perceived to have moved forward with a non-violent way of solving problems.
The idea of the country being stuck in the past brought up the reminder that many believe it still is today. Farming is considered by a large amount of people as the old way of life, along with the ways of the cowboys. While the farming industry has modernized by leaps and bounds, it is still given the stereotypical assumption that it is backwards and stuck in the past. My big question is why that is. Why does the countryside get the idea that it is the past while the city is the present?
Great post Gabrielle! I completely agree with your post and think you brought some great insight here. Yes, as Juan travels from the city to the countryside we see a change from the so called "civilized" society to the "barbaric" side of life. And that as he went to the countryside issues were settled with violence, such as the knife scene in the short story. And its true, many people still view farming as the "old" way of life, even though it has made huge leaps and bounds in terms of modernization. So that is a good question, maybe its because we associate farmers as overall wearers that talk like they never went to school, which we know is not the case. But that's a solid question, that I simply do not know the answer to.
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