The shifting out game in the short story “Mirror of ink”

Abstract

This article covers a study of the shifting out game in the short story “Mirror of Ink”, by Jorge Luis Borges. The mentioned narrative is inserted into the Literary School named Magic Realism, from which Jorge Luis Borges is one of the main exponent representatives. The shifting out game results from the conjunction of the component aspects of the shifting out concept. The shifting out, by its turn, is defined as the operation through which the instance of enunciation splits off and thus projects beyond itself certain terms connected to the basic structure, so that it can constitute the elements that are necessary to the foundation of the discourse-enunciation. The shifting out is divided into shifting out of subject (referred to the subject category), shifting out of time (referred to the category of time) and shifting out of space (referred to the category of space). We proposed to offer evidence that the mentioned game contribute to build a special effect of veridiction sense. Theoretically (see Barros, 2001; Greimas e Courtés, 2008), we adopted Greimas semiotic theory regarding the meaning of enunciation, enunciator, and shifting out. Our procedures regarding the methodology lied in indentifying the shifting out elements present in the short story in order to analyze them as creators of a veridiction effect. Conclusively, we could establish a relation between the shifting out elements found out in the narrative and the veridictory effect, found out in the story. This authorizes us to affirm that the contract of veridiction proved to be effective in the short story “The Mirror of Ink”.