THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.2 Double Whammy: Mixed Doubles The Avatar in Panamarostro” [74]); or as a near drowning: “Recordando desde el tedio” (“mispulmones llenos de agua estaban a punto de estallar” [96]).Asphyxiation by strangulation is a cause of death in “El olor” and “Laintención”, and suffocation either in the physical sense (“Germinación”),or the metaphorical (“Otra vez lo mismo”).The olfactory plays a significant role in Jaramillo Levi’sdescriptions. Generally, references are to the feminine, correspondingto flowers or perfume: the “olor a violetas” is mentioned on every pageof “La figura”; to the masculine, in that they mention “un olor a tabaco”;or they evoke a reminiscence of Panama by mentioning rain and water:“olor a lluvia y tierra mojada”. Miscellaneous references also exist: “elolor a frituras y asados, a sal, a guardado, a incienso y fragancias depino”. 74The fusion of lights, features and sounds, the juxtaposition ofbinary oppositions, hallucinations, repetition-compulsion, obsession,vengeance, asphyxiation, and smell are concepts that have featured inall of the literature of the double presented in this study, be it modern orpostmodern. These concepts all have in common the fact that theyrepeatedly appear in the same context throughout Jaramillo Levi's bodyof fiction making them conscious and consistent images.Jaramillo Levi’s Revisionist TextsAccording to literary theorist Harold Bloom, the anxiety ofinfluence describes the author’s experience of the uncanny uponrecognising the influence of his predecessors in his own work. Theresulting shock may prevent him from writing anything at all or may onlyallow him to reproduce his predecessors’ texts. 75 It has at its root thefear that there remains no proper work for the poet to perform. 76 Thispsychological dilemma is flaunted by postmodernist writers “creatingnew literary forms from ashes of traditional narrative structures andmovements. A method of achieving this is through intertextual revisionor doubling of text whereby an author creates a mirror text that reflects74See Appendix C Olor.75 David Macy, The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory (London: Penguin, 2001) 18.76 Harold Bloom “rewrites literary history in terms of the Oedipus complex”. The poetlives anxiously in the shadow of a “greater” poet who preceded them. Any particularpoem can be read as an attempt to escape this “anxiety of influence” by its systematicremoulding of a previous poem. The poet writes in a way which revises, displaces andrecasts the precursor poem; in this sense all poems can be read as rewritings of otherpoems. The meaning of a poem is another poem. Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: AnIntroduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983) 183205