Christopher Nolan’s Prestige and The Borden Twins

In The Prestige by Christopher Nolan, two magicians, named Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, have an ongoing feud that was caused by the death of one Angier wife. This then leads to seeing who was able to create the greatest trick, and it seems that Alfred had won that title. He had come up with a trick called “The Teleporting Man”, in which he would step inside one box and would magically come out the other. It is revealed later that Alfred had an identical twin brother named Fallon Borden; they would perform the trick together. The two Borden brothers have very different personalities that depict the emotions, joy and anger; these emotions symbolize the greater need for emotions to be put together instead of being separated into individuals.

Alfred and Fallon Borden are men who try to live their lives that they both want to, but their work relations affect their lives in a negative way at times. Alfred had chosen the family path, he had gotten married to the love of his, and he had a daughter along with it. But with being married, and having two brothers switching between their lives usually does cause complications. When Fallon had lived with Alfred’s wife, he was always angry and emotionally detached from Alfred’s wife because he didn’t love her. This causes many problems between Alfred and his wife, disrupting the normally joyful atmosphere. Alfred’s wife and daughter both symbolize the joys that make up one of the Borden brother’s life, although joy is generally thought as a happy emotion, it still needs another part to make it complete.

Fallon Borden is viewed as the “not so good” brother to the viewers. In the film, Fallon seems to be either the fire starter or the fuel to the fire of problems that occur throughout the movie. When Angier’s wife had died, Fallon was the one who had accidently killed her, thinking that the way that he performed the trick would work, only for it to go drastically wrong, and create the problems for the other brother. In the film, he is shown drinking and yelling, and this leads the viewers to dislike him more than the other brother. Fallon is full of confidence and strength that is shown to not be good traits in one singular person to have.

In conclusion, when separated from each other, the two Borden brothers have qualities that cannot not be apart. When they are by themselves, it seems that usually that only bad things happen. This leads watchers to see that two people with different personalities shouldn’t be in two other boxes. Joy and anger need to come together and create one person; it will then create the harmony needed for a decent human being.