The Aleph | Style
The Story’s Epigraphs
The two epigraphs that precede ‘‘The Aleph’’ serve as introductions to the story’s plot as well as short commentaries on its issues. The first, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is said by the title character to his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: ‘‘O God! I could be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.’’ Hamlet’s meaning here is (as he later says), ‘‘There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.’’ By this logic, Hamlet argues that ‘‘Denmark’s a prison.’’ Here, however,...
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