Tainara Candido

AP English

So, let me show you how it’s done...

Jorge Luis Borges, author of The Gospel According to Mark, incorporated irony as a literary technique into his short story to establish an ironic Jesus in the form of the protagonist, Espinosa, who unintentionally gives his followers permission to crucify him. Espinosa holds all the characteristics of an ironic Jesus: his age, his appearance, his teachings and most significantly the lack of belief in his teachings. Espinosa reads the bible every night to the Gutres family, the foreman and his family of the ranch where Espinosa was invited to spend the summer. Through his reading of the Gospel According to Saint Mark, a book of the bible, Espinosa unwittingly teaches the Gutres family he is Jesus Christ and confirmation is seen through his miracles. Espinosa preaches salvation to them but they misunderstand that salvation comes through the form of the crucixion and must be repeated with Espinosa.

Espinosa is a man thirty three years of age who possessed an almost “unlimited kindness” and a capacity for “public speaking”, and had even “grown a beard.” All the qualities Espinosa contained profiled him as a Jesus Christ figure. He taught the Bible to the Gutre family reading the text of the Gospel According to Saint Mark but did not necessarily believe in what he was teaching. Espinosa was labeled early on in the short story as a “free-thinker” which is ironic of him as Jesus Christ, because Christians are not free-thinkers. Rather, Christians follow the Christian doctrine and the Bible and believe in its laws and teachings. Espinosa performed miracles in the Gutres household healing a pet lamb and for any problem that occurred in the household, Espinosa was consulted. The Gutres looked to him as a guide and Espinosa gave “timid orders, which were immediately obeyed.” Espinosa preached salvation to the Gutres, but they misunderstood him. Jesus Christ was crucified to save the people from their sins forever and the Gutres believed Espinosa had to be crucified in order for them to be saved of their sins. Espinosa had been established as a Jesus Christ figure in the Gutres household and now he was going to be crucified like Jesus. Jorge Borges uses irony in that Espinosa did not believe what he preached and was therefore an ironic Jesus Christ figure who died for something he didn’t believe.

Espinosa was an ironic Jesus in that he did not believe in his teachings, yet was murdered for them anyways. He unknowingly showed the Gutres he was Jesus Christ and they believed that in order to be saved, they had to crucify Espinosa and reenact the same crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Irony is used in the story first to establish Espinosa as Jesus and then to cruciify him. The purpose of the story was to establish an ironic Jesus and once that was done to have him die the same way in which Jesus Christ died as the final detail in the establishment of him as Jesus Christ. He basically showed the Gutres how it was “done” and they being good sheep of the Lord, set about doing the deed.