THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.1 Shoes and Mirrors: Images of Doubling The Avatar in Panamaque hacen hoy en día en las películas” is imagined in a paragraphwhich mixes possessive pronouns: “Volvería a sentirse atractiva consus cabellos negrísimos cayendo sobre mis senos (que ya no tendríanpor qué avergonzarse de estar fláccidos, de casi no estar),cubriéndolos. Y la tristeza de mis ojos se alumbraría con el brilloentusiasta de los suyos”.Throughout the narrative there is a connection between thepast and present: “pero sus ojos y la finura de las manos (de las míasen aquel tiempo) siguen impresionando a las visitas” (41). 42 The irony inthis sentence is apparent as that which constitutes the past (de las míasen aquel tiempo) is really coming from the actual present day narrator,the daughter, and that which constitutes the present is the description ofthe features of someone, her mother, who no longer exists. Thisconstant fusion of the two female characters simultaneously evokesdoubling, separateness and unity.Vanity, Fear, and LoathingThe traditional fear of the double is reflected in his fear ofmirrors which reappears in many of the included stories and aboutwhich Borges wrote in poems and short stories. 43 In fact, intertextualreferences are made to Borges’ phobia in Jaramillo Levi’s “Historia deespejos” (CC), a story that combines narcissism and catoptrophobia onthe part of its main character Ricardo.Like Hoffmann’s tale, “Historia de espejos” reflects the differentlevels of narration: Aníbal retrospectively tells a story of a conversationbetween he and his friend Rodrigo; the actual dialogue between the twocharacters during which Rodrigo introduces the theme of mirrors; andRodrigo’s subsequent retelling of his experience of seeing himselfreflected in the mirrors at the home of his then childhood friend turnedwife, Juanita, and the consequence of that experience. 44Rodrigo’s hatred of mirrors is made clear from the outset of thestory so much so that Aníbal comments: “¡Ya sé! Te estás apoyando enBorges. Recuerdo vagamente que abominaba de los espejos porque, aligual que la cópula, permiten al ser humano reproducirse”. 45 Rodrigo42 Jaramillo Levi, “Cuando miro su (mi) fotografía”, Duplicaciones.43 “Yo conocí de chico ese horror de una duplicación o multiplicación espectral de larealidad, pero ante los grandes espejos”; Borges, “Los espejos velados”, Obrascompletas 15-16; “Yo, que sentí el horror de los espejos / No sólo ante el cristalimpenetrable / Donde acaba y empieza, inhabitable / Un imposible espacio dereflejos”, “Los espejos”, OC3 61-63.44 Dina Carmela De Luca, “Caracol y otros cuentos: Exposición artística de la funcióndel escritor”, La confabulación creativa 165-175. 172.45Jaramillo Levi, “Historia de espejos” (CC) 43.176