THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.1 Shoes and Mirrors: Images of Doubling The Avatar in Panamacan remember which gives them a real identity; twenty-five shadowswould not appear as threatening. 20In Jaramillo Levi’s “El vecino” (LTG) and Patricia Melo’s OMatador, there is evidence that the character’s alter-ego is manifestedor projected by the wearing of particular shoes, a concept whichfeatures in many rhymes, classic stories of the double, fairy andfolktales. 21Vecinos, Vigilantes y VigilanciaThe storyteller of O Matador, Máiquel, leads a double life as apaid vigilante and paragon of community-mindedness. The latter role heplays with such conviction that he ultimately receives the “Citizen of theYear” award for services to his neighbourhood. 22 A remarkable aspectof this novel is the way in which the image of shoes is continuallyunderstated throughout the narrative yet the shoes themselves andtheir connotation become a parallel subplot. Shoes mentioned differwidely in colour and are variously described as broken, new, shiny andItalian. The state of Máiquel’s footwear is indicative of his double life,his character and status and the significance of the image is reliantupon the narrative’s context. Initially, the description of Máiquel’swretched shoes is emblematic of his current life and its accompanying20 “La sombra” recalls Luisa Valenzuela’s “Los mejor calzados”, an ironic political storyinspired by the deaths caused by the Alianca Anticomunista de Argentina throughtorture. The shoes are a synedoche representing the deceased and, in fact, become asubstitute for them as “[l]os zapatos son lo único que pueden enterrar, los pobres,porque claro, jamás le permitirán llevarse el cuerpo”. They are unable to bury thecorpses. Luisa Valenzuela, “Los mejor calzados”, Aquí pasan cosas raras (BuenosAires: Flor, 975) 19-20. See reference to Astral Projection footnote 49, 244.21 Elements of doubling may range from the notion of shoes taking possession of thewearer in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes”: “Karen couldn't resist taking afew dancing steps, and once she began her feet kept on dancing. It was as if theshoes controlled her. She danced round the corner of the church-she simply could nothelp it. […] Only when she took her shoes off did her legs quiet down.” See Atranslation of Hans Christian Andersen's "De røde Skoe" by Jean Hersholt. Double identitiesemerge in “Cinderella” and “Puss in Boots” and footwear’s ability to transport theirwearer is the basis for L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, “Seven LeagueBoots”, the Brothers Grimm’s “The Shoes that were danced into Holes” and “TheElves and the Shoemaker.” The multiplying of shoes takes place in the latter whichshows the elves’ output of completed shoes is doubled and then multiplied. Once theelves are shod and dressed (that is, gained identity) they disappear from the cobbler’slife never to be seen again. In the nursery rhyme “The Old Woman Who Lived in aShoe”, the symbolism of the shoe is linked to fertility: “Even the shoe, because of itsassociation with the foot, has had legendary connection to fertility”. Rossi 65.22 Patricia Melo, O Matador edição portuguesa (Porto: Campo das letras, 1995). It isfrom this scene in the novel that the motion picture gets its title, O homem do ano(Man of the Year).149