What is the background of the Gutre family? How did they come to ...

[justinmsk]

What is the background of the Gutre family? How did they come to ownan English Bible? Why is it ironic that they own this book?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

How old is Espinosa? What is ironic about his age?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[kalskdjl1212]

Answer to Question 1

• Like America, Argentina is a country populated largely by immigrants. (Borges himself was a mixture of English, Italian, Jewish, Uruguayan, and Argentinean stock.) The Gutre family are the descendants of Scottish immigrants, but they have lived on the Argentinean pampas so long that they have forgotten not only their English but even their ancestry. Their name is a corruption of the name Guthrie. Significantly, Borges links their Scottish ancestry to Calvinism, with its belief in absolute predestination. (In retrospect, Espinosas sacrificial death seems fated.) The irony of their owning an English Bible is multiple: they cannot read; they know no English; they are seemingly ignorant of Christianity; they have forgotten their Scottish roots. However, there is, of course, a deeper irony. Although they have forgotten everything else, the Gutres have unconsciously maintained a Calvinistic sensibility that leads them to interpret the Gospel with absolute literalism.

Answer to Question 2

• Espinosa is thirty-three, the age at which Jesus is traditionally thought to have been crucified.