Coffee House #2

Out of the six stories listed, the one story that catches my fascination is “The Captive”, by Jose Luis Borges. This is a short story that has its framework established with a beginning and some sort of conclusion to its tale. Part of my fascination for this story stems from my interest in its historical roots, in that it is set sometime during the colonization periods between the 1500s and 1800s in the time of the Age of Exploration. However, what really intrigued me the most is the mysterious circumstances that ‘the boy’ has experienced between the point of his kidnap to his fateful reunion with his parents. It forces us, the reader, to question or maybe even attempt to brainstorm what transpire such a change, which resulted in him losing his native tongue and having a toughened body. One possible idea may be that the boy managed to escape from his captors but could not return to his village because he was not familiar with his current surroundings. Perhaps, the boy may even have traveled to the ‘old world’ without the readers ever knowing since the story never stated time frames before and after the time lapse. Maybe, in order to survive, he had to adapt and learn the European language, which is why we witness his confusion towards the end of the short story. It is these uncertainties that piques my interest into this short story that, if I were ever given the chance to, would greatly expand upon Mr. Borge’s story. And despite giving us a minuscule amount of information regarding the boy’s transformation, “The Captive” reminds me of a story that goes by the name of “The Hatchet”, by Gary Paulsen. Admittedly, I have not read “The Hatchet” in a long time, but it somehow gives off the same vibes as “The Captive”, in that if the short story is lengthened, it can be about the boy’s initial struggles, survival and his eventual change.

For reference, “The Hatchet” is also about a young boy who was forced to learn how to survive in the modern Canadian forest by himself after his pilot suffers a heart attack en route to the young boy’s destination on a small plane. Brian, the story’s protagonist, improvises his forest home, adapts to his situation, and overcomes hardships with the use of his trusty hatchet. At the end of “The Hatchet”, Brian gets rescued and returns to society as a changed man that had survived in the forest for fifty-two days. Unlike “The Captive”, the reader knows the exact details of Brian’s hardships and struggles that he was forced to endure as soon as his plane had crash landed. Be that as it may, “The Captive” carries unlimited potential of storytelling that the reader can conjure up in order to fill the missing gap that Mr. Borge has left us between the boy’s abduction and his homecoming.