Student Question
How does the setting influence the plot in Borges' "The Gospel According to Mark"?
Quick answer:
Jorge Luis Borge's "The Gospel According to Mark" is a story of the conflict and tension between an isolated family and a stranger, Espinosa. The plot is dependent on setting because it creates the extreme isolation that leads to the family seizing upon Espinosa as "the son of God."
The setting draws Espinosa closer to those who will become his murderers and serves to increase the conflict in "The Gospel According to Mark" by Jorge Luis Borges.
Espinosa decides to take a trip to the ranch out of a general sense of complacency; when he is invited, he finds it easier to simply agree than to come up with excuses for not going. The ranch is rather remote, which isolates Espinosa from any possible aid and has also served to isolate the Gutre family. Presumably due to this social isolation, the three members of the family are "barely articulate."
This sense of isolation is compounded when flooding rains begin to fall while Espinosa's cousin Daniel travels to Buenos Aires. Many of the animals drown, which increases an apprehensive mood and serves to foreshadow Espinosa's own demise. The roads leading to the ranch are flooded, which further prevents any possibility...
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that Espinosa could escape the danger that arises with the Gutre family.
The rains continue to flood the land, and a leak in the house where the Gutres family lives prompts Espinosa to offer them a room in the back of the main house. This brings them into even closer physical proximity, providing a greater opportunity for rising conflict. Because they spend an increasing amount of time together, Espinosa decides to begin reading to the family in the evenings. The family is oddly captivated by the Gospel of Mark; when Espinosa reaches the book's conclusion, they ask him to read it again so that they can "understand it better." Because of Espinosa's ability to heal the family's pet lamb, they begin to see him as a representation of Christ and believe that Espinosa must also be sacrificed in order to save them.
The setting is central to the conflict of this story because it physically isolates the family from ideas of progress, modernization, and rational thought and creates the belief that their only hope for salvation is through the sacrifice of their guest, Espinosa. Because he is trapped in a rural setting and is physically trapped in close proximity with this family, Espinosa has no real hope of escaping their plans and instead simply understands "what await[s] him on the other side of the door."