The Library of Babel

The Library of Babel Literary Elements

Genre

Short story

Setting and Context

A fantasy universe which is an infinitely large library

Narrator and Point of View

First person narration from an unnamed librarian. Footnotes added by a fictional editor are used a few times throughout.

Tone and Mood

Philosophical, cynical

Protagonist and Antagonist

Major Conflict

The narrator experiences internal conflict over whether he will find meaning in the universe before dying.

Climax

The narrator comes to the conclusion that the Library is infinite and the books within it are periodic, meaning there may be order to the universe.

Foreshadowing

Understatement

The narrator speaks in an understated tone about what will happen when he dies.

Allusions

The epigraph of the story comes from the text Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton and there are religious allusions throughout the text.

Imagery

The imagery in "The Library of Babel" is purposefully muted and repetitive since the setting is a library made of an infinite number of identical rooms.

Paradox

Parallelism

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Personification