THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.2 Double Whammy: Mixed Doubles The Avatar in Panamawhich might be truncated so it appears as a body part and then as aseparate entity. 68Recurring Concepts and ThemesThe fusion or confusion of lights, features, sounds, and imagescorrespond with the blurring of boundaries between the real and theoneiric, or at the very least, indicate the individual’s psychic confusion.Often, the character undergoes a physical and visual clouding ofobjects due to the merging of various light sources. In this state ofpsychic uncertainty, facial features become blurred in similar ways andimages and sounds are confounded. Time planes converge and thesubject’s other selves become blended.Like many oppositions in the literature of the double, light,lights, and their absence play an important part in Jaramillo Levi’sfiction. These oppositions of night-day, dark-light, presence-absence,pain-pleasure are inherent to the original meaning of the double asparadigm of the good versus evil dichotomy. Throughout this field ofliterature there is a dichotomy or juxtaposition between somethinglacking, missing or absent which affects the character’s perception andconsequent behaviour. As has been seen previously, characters oftenquestion the veracity of their own existence or that of others. This isalso applicable to objects or to a presence of some description (“Una yotra vez” (CB) “su mirada era una ausencia permanente” [59]); “Esapresencia” (CB) (“esa presencia a mis espaldas” [105]); or whensomeone or something is said to be physically, mentally, ormetaphorically absent, as is the case in “El bulto” (FM) (“de ese sercuya ausencia no impedía la ambigua sensación de su obstinadoquerer estar presente todavía” [67]). In this category, the narrative usedis regularly paradoxical: “¿Cuándo?” (“la ausencia súbita de imágenesintensifica” [64]); “Rostro” (“su ausencia es más fuerte” [26]), “Ofertorio”(“aquello que aún le faltaba por crear lo estuviese debilitando” [61]). Inanother set of common binary oppositions the subject’s pain isjuxtaposed with pleasure: “La fiesta del sótano” (lacerando mi piel,sintiendo un grato dolor en la carne rota, doliéndome y deleitándomehasta la parálisis), and “Oscilaciones” (dolor hasta que este seconvierte en fruición desmedida). 69The presence or materialisation of the other, whether subject orobject double, often takes the form of a visual or auditory hallucination.The perceived double may be dead or alive: “Suicidio” (era unfenómeno óptico, una alucinación colectiva); it may be heard: “Es él”(SR) (Pero un ligero sonido indefinible parecía irse desvaneciendo,sigue viendo y oyendo cosas); may be visualised: “La figura” (“una68 See 1.1, footnote 16, page 17.69 See Appendix C Ausencia, Pain.203