THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

2.2 Modernismo and its Masters: Darío and Quiroga The Avatar in Panamaculprit is disclosed: “había un animal monstruoso, una bola viviente yviscosa. Estaba tan hinchado que apenas se le pronunciaba la boca”(75). This technique recalls Poe’s style and unexpected endings whichare usually revealed in the last few lines of the tale. 50 While JaramilloLevi does not treat the theme of vampirism in the blatant way Quirogadoes, possibly with the exception of the anthropofagous character foundin “Oscilaciones” (e), mirrors, reflections and their absence areinherently connected to both the Gothic phenomenon of the vampireand the double. 51“El hombre muerto” and “A la deriva” are just two of Quiroga’smany stories set in the rugged region of Misiones. Despite the title ofthe first, both stories are told from the perspective of a moribund manconfronted with imminent death, rather than a man already dead at thestart. 52 “A la deriva” has its protagonist slowly and painfully dying fromthe results of snakebite despite his ferocious attempts at salvation.Quiroga’s description of the landscape in this story is analogous withthe character’s descent into unconsciousness and ultimately death, ashe is left drifting on the Paraná River. In a double beginning the twocharacters -man and machete- in “El hombre muerto”, are introduced tothe reader in the opening line in which Quiroga uses the third personplural to personify the weapon and connect it to the protagonist: “Elhombre y su machete acababan de limpiar la quinta calle del bananal”(160). This characterisation lasts as long as it takes the machete tofatally, though not immediately, wound, its owner before it assumes therole of inanimate object. Although the nature of his injury renders himincapable of helping himself and he is seemingly aware of his fate, theman does mentally attempt to resist the situation. The resultingnarrative is dual --alternating the first and third person perspective-- andchanging between the man’s desired outcome and the inevitabledemise: “adquirió, fría, matemática e inexorable, la seguridad de queacababa de llegar al término de su existencia. […] El hombre resiste –¡es tan imprevisto ese horror! Y piensa: es una pesadilla; ¡eso es!”(160, 161).50 See “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The Oval Portrait”as examples of the surprise dénouement.51 The starving, self-consuming character of “Oscilaciones” wages mental warfare onhis body by convincing it that “es tal la hartazón que ahora distiende el vientre”. He isunsuccessful however and is reduced to “doblarse una vez más hasta quedar hechouna bola compacta y temblorosa” (87). “Oscilaciones”, Duplicaciones. Mirrors,reflections and the double are examined in 3.1 Shoes and Mirrors, 142.52 Jorge Luis Borges and Leopoldo Lugones also have stories entitled “El hombremuerto”. Horacio Quiroga, “El hombre muerto”, Horacio Quiroga: Cuentos escogidos.Ed Jean Franco (Oxford: Pergamon, 1968) 160-164. Leopoldo Lugones wrote onehundred and fifty narrative texts making him the most prolific modernist author of shortstories surpassing the eighty odd written by Rubén Darío.107