The End (story)

"The End" is a response to the Argentine epic Martín Fierro, which Borges had discussed in a long essay published earlier that year.^[1] In the story, a man who presumably has had a crippling stroke winds up half seeing and half hearing a definitive fight between a "negro" guitarist who has been dwelling in the man's store and a mysterious stranger who turns out to be Martin Fierro, whom the negro has been waiting for. The story ends with Fierro's death at the hands of the negro. Literary scholars have debated the question whether Fierro is a Christ-like figure.