THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

2.3 Dobles and Duplos: Latin American Perspectives The Avatar in Panamanovel in that while the fantasised scene has its origins in wish fulfillmentas it does in “La isla a mediodía”, the motivating emotion of subjectVerónica is vengeance. Varying on the theme, the imagined scenario isdocumented in her creation of a nameless literary text, and althoughthis is not known to protagonist Vicente, the novel is in fact a catalogueof her experience of sexual abuse during her adolescent years.Instances of this trauma described from Verónica’s point of view featurein two sections of “El lector”.The narrator and Vicente are one and the same and heintroduces himself as such to the reader with whom he shares a secret.He confesses that he is curious as to what will happen and what thepurpose of his function is. Although narrator is protagonist and viceversa, the narrator’s perspective is distanced, removed from that ofVicente who has been employed as a reader. He is initially fascinatedby the novel, “la manera gráfica como se describe cada incidente, cadapensamiento teñido de oscuro rencor, le resultan extrañamentefascinantes, totalmente ajenos a su experiencia” (70). Then hebecomes critical even though he is not engaged to analyse the text:“percibiendo, sin embargo, la alucinante ausencia de fluidez en elrelato, intuyendo que hay trozos arrancados de pesadillas y otros quesólo pudieron ser insertados a la fuerza por una mente averiada” (70).The omnipresence of fate is drawn into the tale in section threewhich holds the key to the structure: it lays out the inevitability of thewritten word as the confluence between reported actual events andthose textual events is manifested:Aunque resulte inevitable que Vicente se dévuelta asustado al oír el grito pavoroso de lamuchacha y no poder creer que está oyendorealmente algo que debía carecer de sonidosporque sólo es una descripción literaria, en ellibro que está entre sus manos, de la reaccióndel personaje. Y aunque todo esto se encuentreprevisto porque ya sucedió (72).This sets the context for future events in the course of thereading as simultaneity and destiny combine: Vicente, “oye el gritodesgarrador de la muchacha, como estaba previsto que lo oyera” (74).The two thematic concepts of the story are summarised in the line:“Verónica aseguró que el contenido del libro era reflejo de la vida y queare two male characters, one the narrator Lúcio, and his summoned projected femalecharacter, Marta, the double of the second male character Ricardo. Denise MacLeod,“As Confissões de Mário de Sá-Carneiro”, unpublished Honours thesis, 2000. CarlosFuentes’s Aura is another example.122