[marron]Abstract[/marron]

Borges’ short story “Death and the Compass”, which plays with the notion of fate and calculus, determination and reasoning, situates the subject in the face of contingency On the basis of analyzing a piece of literary fiction, the work compares the diversity of subjective answers given by the characters when the murder was discovered. Lönnrot, main character of the story, sees himself as a pure reasoner and therefore excludes the workings of fate In this manner he pretends not to know about things that decisively affect his life. Infatuated in his position of pure reasoner from whom nothing escapes, he believes himself to be safe from castration: the exclusion of fate is at the service of this belief which leads to his downfall.