The Garden of Forking Paths

If the story “The Garden of Forking Paths” constitutes a smaller labyrinth like the novel The Garden of Forking Paths, where are at least three forking paths in the story? Does Borges choose one path at the expense of another? What other worlds could exist if Borges chose more than one path at these intervals—in other words, what alternate versions of the narrative could there be if, for instance, Madden caught the train as it left the station? If Tsun had taken the rightward forks in the path instead of the leftward?

When Tsun empties his pockets in his room, he finds “just what I knew I was going to find” (213). One of the items is a letter he decides to destroy, though he adds “and which I did not destroy” (213). Why does Borges include this reference to a letter without revealing its contents? What might have been in the letter? Why doesn’t Tsun destroy it?

The protagonist claims, “I am a timorous man” (213). Tsun describes himself repeatedly as somehow weak, timorous, or fragile, but what is the actual textual evidence for Tsun’s self-characterization? What evidence shows him in a different light? What other adjectives would you use to describe him? Support these adjectives with