THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.1 Double, Double, Toil and Trouble The Avatar in Panamashort stories dealing with a protagonist-double who failed to cast ashadow or reflection were based. 7 John Herdman names this sub-genre‘shadow’ fiction which represented a type of character deriving fromsuperstition and folklore who was less sophisticated than that whichwas to follow, the psychological double. 8Many stories and novels included in early modern literature ofthe double featured shadowless or soulless protagonists: HansChristian Andersen’s “The Shadow” (early 1840s), Oscar Wilde’s “TheFisherman and his Soul” (1891) and J. M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy(1911). Adelbert von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihls wundersameGeschichte (1814), (Peter Schlemihl (trans. 1927)), was a definitivecreation in the history of the literature of the double. In this work it is theconception of the shadow or soul’s absence and its consequentsignificance to the protagonist’s psychic and physical unity which is theprincipal concern. Conversely, in Andersen’s tale, the shadow isdepicted as an independent entity which ironically forces its previousowner into the role of his shadow. The shadow’s depiction here, that ofthe sinister silhouette, is in keeping with the Jungian description of theshadow as an archetype which serves as a model for animal instincts inhumans and for malevolent, socially objectionable ideas. One’s shadowcorresponded to “the dark side of our nature”, the equivalent of Freud’sid. 9The manifestation or embodiment of the soul as reflection,shadow, or even portrait was considered such a vital part of thephysical being that it was believed to contain the soul of the personportrayed and that any injury inflicted upon them would be felt as if itwere done to that very person. 10 With this in mind, the destruction of theusually inanimate object symbolising the double has furnished manyauthors with a supernatural conclusion that has been imitateduniversally throughout the literature of the double. Indeed, the wilfuldestruction of one’s double has resulted in being an inadvertentlypopular method of destroying one’s own life. 11 Oscar Wilde’s Dorian7 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust and E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “Die Abenteuer derSilvester-Nacht“, (“A New Year’s Eve Adventure”) are eighteenth-centuryrepresentatives while Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” represents the nineteenth.8 John Herdman, The Double in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: MacMillan,1990) 21.9 Carl G Jung, M. L. von Franz, and John Freeman, eds. Man and his Symbols(London: Pan, 1978) 73.10 Frazer 250-25411 Conrad Veidt’s 1929 film version of The Student of Prague, scripted by Hans HeinzEwers, has the protagonist, the impoverished student Balduin, tricked intosurrendering his reflection to the Devil in return for wealth. Subsequently, after beingtortured and tormented by his reflection, Balduin shoots his mirror image, which thendisappears, and as a result he fatally injures his self. This tale is well documented andindeed provides the basis for Otto Rank’s analysis in The Double 4-6.15