THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.1 Shoes and Mirrors: Images of Doubling The Avatar in Panamaclothing or a covering, a death, a shed skin, and both events occur atnight.The transition from night to day provides the time-frame forRoberto Araya’s “Persecución”. The short story is steeped in thelanguage of fatigue which brings to it an air of being suspendedbetween dreams and wakefulness. It is like “Los zapatos” in that it is amicrocuento, has two diametrically opposing halves, and it is aninfinitely cyclical story again using shoes as a metaphor for selfhood inthe form of a double. 63 It begins with an observation by the storyteller:“Entre el semisueño del alba lo vi levantarse sigilosamente, calzarsemis zapatos, ponerse mi traje, tomar mi maletín, abrir la puerta sinhacer ruido y salir a la calle”. He begins to pursue what turns out to behis other and bemoans the theft of his shoes above everything else,“¡Eh, espere, se lleva mis zapatos!” A near confrontation occurs right inthe middle story: “Cuando él volvía un tanto la cabeza me parecíarecononcerlo, aunque lo más frecuente era encontrarlo totalmenteentraño”, but results in the traditional uncanny dichotomy of foreign andfamiliar. This is as close as he gets to his double. The next morningwhile the narration remains ostensibly the same, the focus has shiftedto he who was being observed in the first instance and later pursued:“Entre la semioscuridad de esa hora pude verlo allí en mi habitación,todavía durmiendo el semisueño del alba. Me levanté sigilosamente,me puse los zapatos, el traje, tomé el maletín, abrí la puerta sin hacerruido y salí a la calle rápidamente”. Thus the story ends as it began butwith the narrator adopting the other’s perspective as the principalcharacter is divided: “-¡Eh, espere, se lleva mis cosas! -gritó alguiénpoco después a mis espaldas” (55). Each half is told from the Other’sperspective; in the first, the narrator recounts his experience ofautoscopy, his actions, and refers to his implied double in the thirdperson while in the last, the narrator assumes the position of the doubleand passively relates the experience of being watched and pursued bythe supposed stranger.Jaramillo Levi’s repertoire of references to the image of shoesis vast and is used to embody and often summon a character’s otherself, to highlight an alteration in temperament, and to indicate a certainrole played, or to encapsulate the essence of the person. Theseconcepts have been presented in the narratives which most showcaseshoes, “El vecino” and “Los zapatos”, and have been compared withBrazilian novel O Matador, José Donoso’s “Gaspard de la nuit”, Chileanmicrocuento “Persecución”. Of note is that while the representation ofthe image remains unchanged, Jaramillo Levi manipulates the contents,characters and conditions to re-present it in a creative context.63 Roberto Araya G., “Persecución”, Cien microcuentos chilenos, ed. Juan AntonioEpple (Santiago: Cuarto propio, 2002) 55.161