Synopsis: The Interloper (La intrusa) is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, published in 1970 in the book El informe de Brodie. It tells the story of the Nilsen brothers, rough and lonely men who live together in an isolated house in Turdera. Their life changes when Cristián brings Juliana to live with them, a woman whose presence threatens to disrupt life in the home. The story describes with realism and rawness how the bonds between the brothers begin to change as a silent rivalry grows between them.
Warning
The following summary and analysis is only a semblance and one of the many possible readings of the text. It is not intended to replace the experience of reading the story.
Summary of The Interloper by Jorge Luis Borges.
In Turdera, a village on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, lived two brothers, Cristián and Eduardo Nilsen, called the Colorados because of their red hair and foreign appearance. It is known that their only book was a Bible with black covers and that they lived in a large, unplastered brick house with a red-tiled courtyard and another courtyard with bare earth. They led a secluded and austere life: they slept on cots, and their only luxuries were their horses, their tools, their daggers, their colorful clothes on Saturdays, and their alcohol. They were tough men, feared by the neighborhood, and possibly guilty of murder. They were always seen together; they had fought shoulder to shoulder against the police, and they maintained a close bond. They had various jobs: cattle drovers, cattle rustlers, horse thieves, and, occasionally, gamblers. Their origins were uncertain, and they were known for their violent and secretive nature.
The fraternal bond between the two began to change when Cristián took Juliana Burgos into his home. She became his wife and, at the same time, his servant. She was dark-haired, with slanted eyes, and her appearance meant she didn’t go unnoticed in the neighborhood. Cristián showered her with trinkets and showed her off at local parties. Juliana’s presence marked a change in the brothers’ lives, who until then had been used to having short-term relationships or visiting brothels.
At first, Eduardo seemed to accept the situation as usual, but then he went away on a trip to Arrecifes. On his return, he began to behave sullenly and solitary. His transformation was because he was also attracted to Juliana, although he did not openly admit it. From then on, he became quieter and began to drink alone. The latent conflict between the brothers became increasingly evident, although it did not manifest itself directly.
One night, Cristián offered Eduardo the chance to stay with Juliana while he went partying, saying simply: “There’s Juliana; if you want her, use her.” From that moment on, the brothers began to share the woman in a degrading cohabitation that broke with all norms. For a while, the arrangement worked, but tensions soon began to arise. They argued about practical matters, but in reality, what confronted them was the multitude of silent jealousies. Both were romantically involved, although they would never admit it.
Juliana, although submissive, showed a particular preference for Eduardo. One day, without further explanation, she was ordered to gather her belongings, including some small personal relics, and was loaded onto a cart. They took her to Morón, where she was sold to a madam at a brothel. The deal was already done. Cristián received the money and shared it with his brother. With that, they thought they had restored peace between them.
Back in Turdera, they tried to resume their old lives, frequenting games, fights, and sprees, but each one went back alone to look for Juliana in the brothel. There was no fight when Cristián found Eduardo there; he simply decided to take Juliana back home, restarting the same old situation. The conflict, far from being resolved, was repeated.
Finally, Cristián made a definitive decision. One afternoon, as Eduardo was returning from the store, Cristián invited him to accompany him with the excuse of taking some leather. They traveled along the Camino de las Tropas, and upon reaching a lonely place, Cristián confessed without emotion that he had killed Juliana and that he had left the body in the field for the caranchos to take care of the rest. There was no discussion or violence between them; on the contrary, they embraced each other emotionally, as if the crime committed was a way of restoring their original bond, now sealed by silence and shared guilt.
Characters from The Interloper by Jorge Luis Borges.
The main characters in the story are Cristián and Eduardo Nilsen, two brothers who form the narrative and emotional core of the story. Their fraternal bond is presented from the outset as an ironclad, almost indissoluble bond forged in a life of isolation, violence, and marginality. They live together, work together, drink together, and share a closed world where there is no room for other affections or relationships that might displace this primary bond. Their relationship is marked by absolute loyalty, an unspoken code that prevails over any other social bond. They are men of few words, hardened by their environment and by a wandering life that has led them to engage in rough trades such as quartering, smuggling, gambling, and violence. Physically similar —tall, red-haired— their differences begin to be noticed with the appearance of Juliana, who unleashes a deep and silent conflict between them.
Cristián, the older brother, seems the most dominant in the relationship. He is the one who makes decisions and sets the course of events. His character is more open, decisive, and pragmatic. He is the one who introduces Juliana into the house, who presents her as if she were his, and also the one who, in an ambiguous gesture, decides to share her with his brother. His apparent generosity in that act conceals a form of domination since he continues to exercise control even when he gives in to the woman. Later on, he will also be the one who decides to sell her and who, finally, takes the extreme decision to kill her. His behavior reveals a personality that seeks to maintain the hierarchical order and preserve the unity between the brothers at any price, even if that price is a crime. In his value system, the bond with his brother is above any other affection, and his final action can be interpreted as a way of extirpating the dissonant element that threatened that unity.
Eduardo, the younger brother, is a more introspective and reserved character. At the story’s beginning, he seems to be subject to Cristián’s will and follows his decisions. However, when he is attracted to Juliana, his behavior changes: he isolates himself, becomes more sullen, withdraws from social life, and shows signs of inner conflict. Unlike Cristián, Eduardo does not openly express his feelings or intentions; however, his attraction to Juliana and his desire for her is evident and manifest in the growing silent rivalry with his brother. Although he agrees to share the woman, he does not do so from a position of initiative but rather by default, and his subsequent visit to the brothel, when Juliana has already been sold, shows that his attachment is more profound than he could admit. Eduardo embodies the internal conflict that slowly corrodes the relationship between the brothers without it being verbalized. His role is not the antagonist’s but rather the second vertex of an emotional triangle that none of the three can sustain.
Juliana Burgos is the woman who destabilizes the closed and masculine universe of the brothers. Although her role seems secondary due to her limited voice in the narration, her presence is decisive. Juliana does not act as an agent but as an object: she is taken, offered, shared, sold, and finally murdered. However, she embodies the core of the conflict. She represents what the brothers cannot name or handle: desire, love, jealousy, and the possibility of an emotional bond that transcends the fraternal one. They treat her like an object, yet her mere presence transforms the entire emotional structure of the Nilsen family. Although submissive in her behavior and compliant, her apparent inclination toward Edward introduces an imbalance that the brothers’ masculine codes cannot resolve. She has no voice in the story, but her existence turns everything upside down. Ultimately, her elimination is not an act of hatred but a supposed “solution” to the conflict: the brothers cannot kill each other, but they can eliminate the one who has been the cause of the discord.
Commentary and analysis of The Interloper by Jorge Luis Borges.
The Interloper is a story that, although it presents a concrete and easy-to-follow plot on the surface, conceals a deep, silent tension full of meaning. Here, Borges constructs a narrative in which what is important is not only what happens but also what is kept quiet, what is not said directly but which, nevertheless, is present in every gesture and every decision made by the characters. Although it may seem like a story about two brothers and a shared woman, it is a complex reflection of human bonds, jealousy, desire, power, and violence.
The central conflict in the story revolves around the arrival of Juliana Burgos in the life of the Nilsen brothers. Until that moment, Eduardo and Cristián lived in an exclusively masculine world, closed and almost hermetic, where everything revolved around the two of them: their work, their house, their codes, their silences. The arrival of Juliana not only introduces a new external element into this universe but also alters the affective and emotional structure that united them. What seems to be a conflict over a woman is, in reality, a much deeper conflict: the silent struggle between the brothers to preserve a bond that begins to fracture with the appearance of desire.
A notable feature of the story is that the characters never directly express their feelings. Borges shows but does not explain. Therefore, the reader must read between the lines and observe the gestures, the decisions, and the silences. For example, the brothers never confess to being in love with Juliana or feeling attracted to her, not even to themselves. However, every action they take shows that the feeling exists, jealousy grows, and desire creates conflict. The lack of words is not a void but a narrative device: Borges thus portrays a world in which men do not talk about their emotions but are nevertheless dominated by them.
From a narrative point of view, the story is told in the first person, although the narrator is not one of the protagonists but someone who claims to have heard the story from others. This choice generates an effect of distance as if the events were already part of an orally transmitted story, almost a local legend. At the same time, this form of narration creates an ambiguous atmosphere between the real and the legendary, where the reader never quite knows how much of the story is true and how much is a distortion. Borges uses this device to accentuate the fatalistic tone of the story as if what is narrated could not have happened in any other way as if the characters’ destinies were already sealed.
In terms of style, Borges uses sober, precise language stripped of unnecessary adornments. The story progresses with clear and direct sentences but ones charged with tension. Each word is measured, and each scene is constructed to provoke a subtle but intense impression. There is no drama or great emotional outbursts. And yet the reader senses that latent violence lies beneath the apparent narrative calm, a deep unease that grows until it reaches a stark and silent conclusion.
One of the story’s most complex aspects is how the female figure is represented. Juliana, who is at the center of the conflict, is the character with the least say. We do not know her thoughts or her desires. The story always presents her from the brothers’ perspective, as if she were just another object. She is rarely mentioned, and when she is, she is almost never spoken to directly, yet she is the one who transforms everything. Her presence demonstrates how emotional bonds can be powerful, even when reduced to a utilitarian or possessive level. The story’s tragedy is that the brothers share a woman, and to preserve their bond, they decide to eliminate her as if she were a disruptive piece that must be removed from the board.
The end of the story is particularly significant. Cristián murders Juliana not out of hatred or spite but as an act of restoring order, as if her death were necessary for him and his brother to be united again. This extreme decision, far from being resolved in a violent and spectacular scene, is shown serenely, almost ritualistically. It is precisely this dry and emotionless tone that makes it so disturbing. Violence is naturalized, presented as something inevitable and almost logical within the closed universe of the brothers.
The Interloper raises a disturbing question: How far are people prepared to go to preserve a bond? What are they capable of doing to deny themselves what they feel for fear of what it means? What place is given to love, desire, and affection in a world governed by silence and codes of masculinity? Borges offers no answers. He lets the facts speak with an uncomfortable precision and a subtlety that forces the reader to look beyond the obvious.
Analysis of The Interloper from a gender perspective.
From a gender perspective, The Interloper is a story that allows us to observe how power relations between the masculine and the feminine are configured in a universe marked by patriarchy, possession, and exclusion. Borges constructs a story in which the bonds between men are at the center and in which the female character, although essential to the development of the plot, lacks voice and autonomy. Through this narrative configuration, the story shows, without embellishment, the subordinate place that women occupy within an order dominated by the codes of traditional masculinity.
From the beginning, Juliana Burgos is not presented as a complete character but as an element integrated into the closed world of the Nilsen brothers. Her entry into the house is not the result of a shared decision or a loving relationship based on mutual affection but rather a unilateral one: Cristián brings her in, settles her in, shows her off, adorns her, and also offers her up. From this point of view, Juliana is treated as an object: she is possessed, shown, shared, sold, and, finally, eliminated. Her subjectivity does not appear at any point in the story; we do not know her perspective, she has no words of her own, and she is not listened to or seen to make decisions. Even when she seems to submissively accept her place, this attitude is not interpreted as a conscious choice but as part of her functional character within the male universe.
The story’s structure reinforces this logic of exclusion: the conflict is not between a man and a woman but between two men because of a woman. The story’s real drama is not presented as a struggle for Juliana’s love but as a threat to the fraternal bond she represents. In other words, the woman is not seen as a desiring subject but as a disruptive element, an obstacle to the continuity of masculine unity. This is a very significant feature in the gender analysis: the story shows how hegemonic masculinity tends to exclude the feminine as a threat to the cohesion of the group of men and, even more, how it reacts violently when the feminine breaks with the pact of masculine loyalty.
The fact that the brothers share Juliana without mentioning her by name reinforces this instrumentalized view of women. The female body becomes the neutral ground for negotiation between men. The scene in which Cristián tells his brother that he can “use” her is a clear expression of this patriarchal logic: the woman is an object of exchange, and her value lies solely in her availability to satisfy the needs of men. It is no coincidence that Borges avoids any form of romanticism or explicit affection; even if they feel jealousy or attraction, the characters do not express it in those terms because the symbolic universe in which they move does not admit other forms of bond than possessive desire or domination.
From this perspective, the conflict between the brothers is not caused by Juliana as a person but by what she represents: the introduction of desire into a bond that only admitted virile loyalty. The problem is not so much that the brothers fall in love but that the appearance of a desire other than brotherly desire breaks the balance of the masculine order. For this reason, the resolution of the conflict — violent, definitive, and ritual — is not presented as an outburst of passion but as a need to re-establish that altered order. The woman is converted into a symbol of that disturbance and is sacrificed. The violence exercised against her is justified to restore the previous harmony between men.
From a gender perspective, this outcome highlights the structural nature of patriarchal violence. The woman is not killed out of hatred or individual revenge but simply for being there, for having embodied an emotional bond that the men do not know how to integrate into their world. The elimination of Juliana is, in that sense, a brutal way of reaffirming the male pact and of sealing once again that alliance that does not admit external affective interference.
It should be noted that although Borges does not directly judge his characters or explicitly expose a social critique, he does make visible the cruel and dehumanizing logic that governs the universe he describes. The story is not an apology for violence or machismo but a stark portrayal of how male power operates on women’s bodies and lives. In this sense, The Interloper can be interpreted as a text that reveals the limits of traditional masculinity, its inability to accept desire as a shared experience and not as a form of domination.
Finally, it is worth asking what place Juliana occupies in Borges’s literature. She is one of the few female figures who play a central role in a story, but her presence is constructed from absence. Her body is present, but her voice is absent. Her role is decisive, but her subjectivity is denied. This paradox is not accidental but consistent with a story that shows, with disturbing precision, how the patriarchal order can only be sustained by denying the place of the other and how that denial ultimately translates into violence.
