A Comprehensive Analysis of Literary Protagonists - Sykalo Evgen 2023

Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote - “Ficciones” by Jorge Luis Borges

Let’s not pretend we’re here to write an MLA-cited lecture. Jorge Luis Borges would roll his one functioning eye (yes, he lost sight in the other—this is your cultural trivia snack for the day) at anything resembling a tidy argument. “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” isn’t about making sense—not in the way your freshman lit professor explained “sense.” It’s about the wild, manic act of rewriting and, oh yeah, the complete futility of originality. Borges didn’t just break the fourth wall; he bulldozed it, danced on the rubble, and asked if the wall was ever really there.

So. Literary protagonists. Are they even real? Not in a weird “Do they exist?” metaphysical way—but are they “literary”? Are they “protagonists”? Enter Pierre Menard, a guy who decides he’s going to rewrite Don Quixote word for word. And by rewrite, I mean he doesn’t copy it. That would be…well, copying. Menard, Borges’ fictional hero(?), recreates the exact text of Cervantes’ masterpiece from scratch, claiming the process—the sheer existential agony of it—renders the work entirely new. Imagine someone recreating Taylor Swift’s 1989 from memory and insisting it’s an original album. That’s Pierre Menard energy.

Borges and the Originality Scam

Borges is trolling us. Big time. And not just in a cheeky, postmodern way (though, sure, it’s that too). He’s saying: what even is originality? If Pierre Menard’s verbatim rewrite of Don Quixote has different cultural meaning than Cervantes’ original, does it become a new work? Think about it. Menard writing “In a village of La Mancha, whose name I have no desire to recall…” in 20th-century France is a flex. It’s dripping with irony. Cervantes, when he penned the line in 1605, was just…writing. No irony. No posturing. Just “Here’s a dude with a lance and a midlife crisis.” The context changes everything.

And suddenly, we’re spiraling into a rabbit hole of literary theory that feels suspiciously like scrolling Reddit at 3 a.m. The top comment? “Nothing’s original anymore.” And it’s true—except Borges says: who cares? Pierre Menard’s Quixote isn’t less valuable because it’s derivative. If anything, it’s more valuable because it’s self-aware. A hyper-ironic remix of something already iconic. Like TikToks about TikToks.

Protagonists and the Meta-Narrative Circus

Let’s talk about Pierre Menard himself. Is he even a protagonist? Not in the sword-wielding, action-hero sense. He’s…anti-action. He does nothing but obsess over a task that is, at best, unnecessary and, at worst, absurd. But isn’t that kind of refreshing? Literary protagonists are usually doing something: saving the day, discovering themselves, overthrowing a government, blah blah blah. Menard, meanwhile, is sitting in his dusty French attic, rewriting a book that already exists. He’s the literary equivalent of a guy who spends five years building a Lego Death Star only to disassemble it for fun.

And yet. Menard feels profoundly human—and not in the “good person” way. He’s egotistical. He’s obsessive. He’s chasing validation and meaning in a way that screams: “Relatable, 2025.” Protagonists don’t have to be heroes anymore. (Did they ever?) They just have to reflect something… true. Menard’s truth is this: creativity is exhausting, and it’s mostly futile, but also, you’ll die without it.

Borges’ Quixote: Meta, Much?

This whole story is Borges flexing his narrative biceps. It’s a story about a story about a story. Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, a novel about a guy whose brain is fried from reading too much fiction. Borges writes about Menard, who rewrites Cervantes, who wrote about Quixote, who thinks he’s a knight. My head hurts, and I love it. Borges is playing 4D chess with literature, and we’re all pawns desperately trying to keep up.

But the genius isn’t just the layers of narrative—it’s the way Borges dismantles the idea of “the protagonist” altogether. Quixote thinks he’s a hero. Menard thinks he’s a genius. Borges thinks (probably) that we’re all idiots for trying to “find meaning” in this labyrinth of metafiction. The real protagonist isn’t Menard or Quixote or even Cervantes. It’s Borges himself, smirking from the page. He’s telling us: the story isn’t the point. The telling is.

The TikTokification of Borges

Here’s the thing: Borges would have loved TikTok. Not for the dances (though I bet he’d have opinions on choreography) but for the chaos. The infinite scroll of remixed ideas, layered trends, and self-referential memes? That’s pure Borges. He’d see a TikTok where someone reenacts The Bachelor finale but set in a medieval jousting tournament, and he’d whisper, “Pierre Menard lives.”

Because that’s the legacy of this story. It’s not just about Don Quixote or Menard or Borges. It’s about us. The readers, the scrollers, the remixers of culture who take something old and spin it—maybe ironically, maybe earnestly—into something new. Pierre Menard didn’t just rewrite Don Quixote; he predicted the remix culture we’re swimming in now. And Borges saw it coming, long before anyone had heard of hashtags or soundbites.

No Conclusion. Just… Thought

So what do we do with this? Do we embrace Pierre Menard’s manic devotion to the unoriginal? Do we shrug and admit nothing is new under the sun? Maybe the point isn’t to decide. Maybe it’s just to exist in this messy, glorious chaos of ideas. Rewriting, remixing, scrolling—we’re all Pierre Menard, in a way. Chasing meaning. Chasing relevance. Chasing… something.

Or maybe we’re just tilting at windmills. But honestly, what’s so bad about that?