THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.3 Reinventing the Double The Avatar in Panamaliterature. 16 The second self is often inadvertently conjured up by theoriginal character and this has traditionally produced a projected ormirror image double. It takes a more subtle form in Jaramillo Levi's workas it not necessarily always the actual double that is summoned butmay often be the circumstances facilitating its appearance or presence.In “La fuente” for instance, the dead protagonist’s wife invokes andensures his safe passage back to her and their child: “me llamabasdesde tu aislamiento. Lo hacías con los ojos, con el alterado ritmo delas aletas de la nariz, con el silente palpitar de unos labios antestensos, ahora amoratados en su espera” (10). The repetition of eventsor timely coincidences may also coax a version of the double to emerge(“Síntesis corregida y aumentada”), as might the surfacing andamalgamation of anachronistic but simultaneous timezones(“Ofertorio”).Doubles and doubling are evoked in a variety of ways includingthrough the unconscious desire to fulfil a wish (in the case of “Elesposo” to simultaneously be and not be with Sandra); throughobsessive thought and the onus of guilt (the apparent abandonment ofa child in “El vecino” results in the creation of a curious neighbour);through memory and the creation and re-creation of a sequence ofevents (via hypnotism in “Vergüenza”); sensory clues (gazing into thereflection of lustrous shoes in “El vecino”); and telepathy which is foundthroughout Jaramillo Levi's fiction and is linked to the notion ofpresentiment (“Las palomas” in which the protagonist believes herself tobe communicating on a telepathic level with the birds “les digo a misamigos con el pensamiento” [111]). Apart from the tactile, experimentaland the olfactory, psychoanalytic symbols are used, orally, aurally, orvisually. 17 The glass into which the narrator of “Bautismo ausente” lookswhen he foresees his own death is an example.One of the most potent sensory triggers related to memory andsummoning is that of smell, used prolifically by Cortázar, and whichhappens to be one of Jaramillo Levi's most used images. This ishighlighted in “La figura”: “El olor a violetas se intensificó en seguida yEnrique no pudo resistir la tentación de tratar de palpar aquella figuraque no dejaba que sus ojos se detuvieran en ella” (20) and “¿Cuándo?”(VD), which combines both the olfactory and the tactile: “[u]na mano seha posado de pronto sobre el hombro a la vez que se siente un tenueperfume conocido” (65). The palpable gesture evokes a fierce olfactory16 An obvious example is that of the verbal enunciation of Dorian Gray’s wish toremain forever young is the catalyst for his portrait assuming the ageing process: “If itwere only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture wasto grow old! For that – for that -- I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in thewhole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!” Wilde, Dorian Gray 47.17 Like the ladder which is inadvertently hung overboard in Joseph Conrad’s TheSecret Sharer, inviting the stranger (the protagonist Legget’s double) aboard.229