THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.3 Reinventing the Double The Avatar in Panama“Cuando miro su (mi) fotografía”, “Ahora que soy él” and“Testigo” are three stories which share simultaneous opposing objectsin the titles of the first two and the opening line of the latter. “Cuandomiro su (mi) fotografía” combines past and present by contrasting thepossessive adjectives of both living and deceased before the object.“Ahora que soy él” replicates this by juxtaposing two subject pronounswhile employing one (él) as an object.“Me mira y sé que no es a mí a quien está mirando” is thetruthfully ambiguous start to “Testigo”, as this double beginningdescribes its protagonist looking at two things simultaneously -herreflection and the personified mirror who is the narrator (130). In“Testigo”, although narrator and reflection are different entities, theyalso play dual roles of witness and executioner: “Al sentir que sus ojosme taladran buscándose, quisiera no ser testigo, no ser verdugo, no seryo.” This is also unclear as this description could be referring to subjector object. This ambiguous doubling is also the case with endings orclosing lines as in “La alumna” when Paula declares to her class in thepresence of Alejandro (her teacher and current lover), that she has aboyfriend who is studying elsewhere to whom she is pregnant andengaged to be married:respiró aliviado, agradecido. Paula era muyhábil fabricando historias, siempre lo había sido.Pero de pronto lo aguijoneó la duda. En realidadya no podría estar seguro nunca (124),While Alejandro is initially relieved that she has chosen not todisclose the truth, her confession is ambiguous and unclear by hisreckoning and as such creates a double interpretation. Doubt and guiltcause Alejandro and the reader to wonder whether Paula’s admissionhas credence.Anderson Imbert states that one of the features of the fantasticshort story was the surprise ending, and in Poe’s case, it was an oftenclimactic finale. 15 Jaramillo Levi’s ambiguous endings do offer theunexpected, though it is rarely climatic and although the conclusionsare not definitive and perhaps this is what makes them universallynovel. The story’s various interpretations depend on what the lectorcómplice brings to it as well as their reading and personal history.The psychic or verbal willing of the emergence of doubles hasbeen a usual and often deliberate conceptual device in this genre of15 See 2.2 95.228