THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

Introducing the Double:The Seductive Paradoxresonancias: resonancias de dobles”), there has been no serious orobjective criticism, or previous academic study related specifically todoubles in Jaramillo Levi’s fiction. 5 The literary device has not receivedthe critical attention that Jaramillo Levi himself has given it. The doublehas not been examined expressly as a theme; its application toJaramillo Levi’s fiction has not been comprehensively dealt with; norhas the Panamanian author’s fiction been scrutinised in anycomparative context: no parallels have been drawn or comparativestudies carried out with any other fiction. The existing criticism appearsto be almost devoid of any mention of modernism, its proponents andtheir contributions to Jaramillo Levi’s body of work, making the absencein this area noticeable. The available critical literature has focusedalmost entirely on the postmodern attributes of Jaramillo Levi’s workperhaps because critics are reacting to the ongoing criticism from apostmodern view: Almost all of the articles in Birmingham-Pokorny’sCritical Perspectives and Hackshaw’s Confabulación creativa deal withpostmodern and metafictional aspects; Humberto López Cruz’sEncuentro con la literatura panameña, María Elvira Villamil’s, “Artificioen Caracol y otros cuentos: Historias visibles e historias secretas”,Fernando Burgos’s, “Las preguntas del tiempo y las confesiones:Caracol y otros cuentos”, and Jerry Hoeg’s, “Enrique Jaramillo Levilooks at Writing and Being Written in Caracol y otros cuentos”, amongothers, have a particular postmodern bent. 6The objective of this project is to break that cycle by introducinga critique of the double inclusive of modern authors and their storiesgermane to the literature of the double. To that end, this thesis dealswith the treatment of the double in Jaramillo Levi’s work and comparesit with other Latin American, European and North American writers whoalso treat the theme and whose work is similar in either content,symbolism or narrative structure to that of Jaramillo Levi. He employselements and features of both the modern and the postmodern in bothhis portrayal of the double and his narrative technique. His stories allowthe reader various interpretations but essentially tackle the ontologicalanxiety that plagues many of his characters. The intention of this studyis to consider the emergence of the double and its use as a literary5Ángela Romero Pérez, La mirada oblicua: Voces, siluetas y texturas en‘Duplicaciones’ de Enrique Jaramillo Levi. (Panama: Panamá: Universal, 2003).Patricia M. Mosier, “Caja de resonancias: resonancias de dobles”, Chasqui, 19:1,(1990): 3-9.6 Johanna Ramos, “La fragmentación diluida en Duplicaciones de Enrique JaramilloLevi”, Encuentro con la literatura panameña, ed. Humberto López Cruz (Panamá:Universal, 2003) 81- 92; María Elvira Villamil, “Artificio en Caracol y otros cuentos:Historias visibles e historias secretas”, Maga; Fernando Burgos, “Las preguntas deltiempo y las confesiones: Caracol y otros cuentos”, Alpha. dic. 2005, no.21 [citado 23Marzo 2007], 9-24. ; Jerry Hoeg, “Enrique Jaramillo Levi looks atWriting and Being Written in Caracol y otros cuentos” Diáspora 13 (2003): 22-32.4