THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

3.3 Reinventing the Double The Avatar in Panamait is to be a person. 22 The fantasy of transformation deals with thedissolution of mental properties into the physical.Irving Massey classifies metamorphosis under various headingsand suggests that aspects of the concept derive from distinctdisciplines. Aside from the notions of mental disturbance, trauma,unconscious, which derive from the field of psychology, the scientificstems from biology and philosophy and contributes the idea of identitytheory; anthropology offers folklore, possession, shape-shifting,vampirism and lycanthropy to metamorphosis; and religion creates thedoctrine of metempsychosis. 23 The forms of metamorphosis are moreoften than not forms of the physical world; organic, inorganic, or manmade.Most commonly in literature they appear as alterations from manto animal, plant, insect, mineral; and partial changes or amalgamationsof several forms. Material form may be altered but mental capacity mayremain intact as in Cortázar’s “Axolotl”, and Jaramillo Levi's “Losanteojos”, “Las palomas, and “Paseo al lago”. 24 Metamorphosis mayenable a body part to become a separate entity (as the facial featuresdo in “El búho que dejó de latir”); people become their own antithesesor doubles or turn into parts of themselves (La tarde del encuentro”).The individual might be invaded and overwhelmed by somethingintangible (“Oscilaciones”); may be turned wholly into objects or halfpetrified (“Evasiones de la muerte”). In Jaramillo Levi’s fiction,characters may become embodied in an artefact or picture (“El retrato”,“Cuando miro su [mi] fotografía”), transformed into a device (“Elladrón”), machine, or puppet (“Maniquíes”), or the body becomes areceptacle for abstract concepts such as nature (“Recordando desde eltedio”, “El bulto”). The purpose of literary metamorphosis is varied: fromtransmigration to escape, it provides an escape from a former identity tothe conception of a new one. Stories of metamorphosis have theircharacters alter to avoid oppression, fear and guilt, marginalisation,loneliness and pain, and to an extent, confirm the refusal of theindividual to grow, psychologically and developmentally.Jaramillo Levi dedicates divisions of Duplicaciones tometamorphoses and doubling -in “Metamorfosis” (Iowa 1970, México1971), and “Duplicaciones” (México, Panamá, 1970, 1971),respectively. However, the fiction of transformation is not exclusive toDuplicaciones. Lycanthropy may include fleeting or permanent22 “Todas las transformaciones tienen algo de profundamente misterioso y devergonzoso a la vez, puesto que lo equívoco y ambiguo se produce en el momento enque algo se modifica lo bastante para ser ya «otra cosa», pero aún siendo lo que era.Por ello, las metamorfosis tienen que ocultarse, de ahí la máscara.” Cirlot, Diccionariode Símbolos 299.23 Massey 15.24Harold Skulsky, Metamorphosis: The Mind in Exile (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1981)2.231