THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.1 Shoes and Mirrors: Images of Doubling The Avatar in Panamadebería estar parado yo. Pero mi figuradefinitivamente no se reflejaba (99). 29Raúl sees everything else reflected but his own image image,which is cause for alarm and is justified as the idea of soul, reflection orimage being absent is traditionally indicative of a fractured or morallyuneven personality. When Pepe removes the glasses Raúl wants themback as without them he has no reflection even though with them hisreflection is a transformed image. Raúl does not want to be left alone“para no sentir esa horrible falta de realidad”. The mirror reflectseverything but his own image, although Pepe sees Raúl’s image, Raúldoes not; it is selective. When the glasses are on, he sees hisreflection. Although Pepe sees Raúl as normal and who still plays therole of the narrator, for Raúl his identity, defined by what he does see ordoes not see in the mirror, is lost. The metamorphosis signifies the endof his identity as a human yet he also rejects what he has become, anowl. 30 His rejection of identities, an unwitting self-destructive decision,results in a sense of ambiguity in the final paragraph which ironicallylinks them both: “Uno puede desangrarse asido de una rama […] Opuede hacerlo estirado sobre el lecho, sin identidad ni recuerdos” (100).There is a comparison with suicide here.Death of the DoubleIn the literature of the double the murder of the reflection oftenequals the suicide of the self. Often the role of the alter-ego, which issymbolised by the mirror image, is to propound beliefs andcorresponding actions contrary to those of the original subject. This isthe premise for Poe’s “William Wilson”, and R. L. Stevenson’s“Markheim”. However, despite that, in these cases the double embodiesthe positive aspects of personality, their demise is still brought about bythe classic murder-suicide option. “William Wilson” contains all theelements of the paradigmatic double story and uses the mirror to effectan illusory ending in the form of his double’s murder. After Wilson’s cry,“You shall not dog me unto death!” he plunges his sword “with bruteferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom” (640-641). After theact:A large mirror -so at first it seemed to me in myconfusion-- now stood where none had beenperceptible before; and as I stepped up to it inextremity of terror, mine own image, but withfeatures all pale and dabbled in blood,29See and compare Maupassant’s quote in 3.1, footnote 19 166.30Mosier, “Caja de resonancias” 5.169