Question

In at least 150 words, explain why Borges’s narrative “The Garden of Forking Paths” is often considered a precursor to hypertext and the Internet.

Answer 1

A hypertext is a digital text in which one or more hyperlinks are embedded, a hyperlink is a word, picture, or graphic element in digital media that is connected through a mouse click to another location in a digital document or webpage. Borges uses allusions like a hypertext to further connect his ideas in the story, "Garden of Forking Paths" by implying their connections through time. An Allusion is a reference to other people and events whose images serve as a symbol of a broad concept or theme. The allusions become metaphors for the connections of people on Earth over generations. For example, on the train, a boy reads the Annals of the Roman historian and Senator Tacitus. The Annals provide us with a record of the history of the Roman Empire, but Tacitus never completed his work, and like the missing pages in the document, some of it did not survive over time.