THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

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3.3 Reinventing the Double The Avatar in Panamasenos, acechándole la boca abierta por dondeno escaparía el segundo grito (106).The sister’s demise has been interpreted by Patricia Mosier in“Caja de resonancias”, as “una especie de incesto simbólico” (143), andas incest itself by Ricardo Segura who suggests the boy-plant rapes hissister. 29 Sexual references aside, it can be reasonably assumed that hissister is to be smothered and suffocated by her sibling.Another story of botanic consumption, “En el jardín” (ACO),opens with a double beginning which sets up the expectation of afantastic element, “Todo es posible, hasta lo imposible” (57). A childdeliberately uproots and swallows a flower from his garden, its ownertells the reader. Fantastically, the flower is regurgitated in tact, and itimmediately grows into an enormous iridescent flower whose brightyellow tongue-like pistil envelops the offending child. In retaliation, theplant swallows him whole, and he is never to be seen again:“Convertida ahora en planta grandísima que sobresale en mi jardín, esaflor conserva no obstante su autonomía” (58). This event appears to bethe start of a lucrative business which grows and grows like the numberof missing children; “Cada tanto tiempo la historia, con variantesmenores, se repite […] Sobre todo cuando algún niño travieso dejaatrás la excursión en que venía y se siente tentado a transgredir latensa paz de mis dominios”; and his strange plants: “Mis plantas, sobretodo los papos, se multiplican, se agigantan, están tan felices” (58-59).This regenerated carnivorous flower hints at the sinister, as does thetale “Dueña y señora” which tells of the instantaneous transformation ofa plucked rose into a new one. The energy and beauty the flowersummons from its roots for this rebirth drains the other flowers of theirs:“Pétalo a pétalo renace, hasta recuperar no sólo el esplandor de suantigua belleza sino también esa otra que simultáneamente dejan detener todas las demás rosas” (35). 30 These stories subtly explore theparasitic factor of doubling, a symbiotic element linked to vampirism,from the realm of the Gothic.The alteration from woman to abstract object of dusk or night isdepicted in “Recordando desde el tedio”, in which one half of the textcontrasts with the other. The first half transforms itself from the positiverecollections of a memorable childhood visit to the zoo, to the reenactmentof a nightmarish experience of a woman’s near drowningand sexual assault that results in her murder of the attacker in the29 Ricardo Segura, “El poder de la palabra artística: Aproximación a la obra cuentisticade Enrique Jaramillo Levi”, Puertas y ventanas (San José: Editorial UniversitariaCentroamericana, 1990) 21.30 These botanic variations also occur in several of Ana María Shua’s stories featuredin Botánica del caos. See “Un curso muy útil”, Botánica del caos (Buenos Aires:Sudamericana, 2000) 17.234
3.3 Reinventing the Double The Avatar in Panamasecond. The juxtaposition of positive versus negative and the childhoodversus adult experience highlights the extreme polarisation of heremotions and personality. One aspect of zoo visit is also mirrored in thesexual assault, “en tu sonrisa la de los monos tras los barrotes, elplacer que te daba contra mi voluntad, aunque esta vez no erasolamente espectadora” (97) which serves to connect the story’s halvesin a frequently used technique by Jaramillo Levi. The latter experiences-“las desagradables”- sully all the rest but recur nonetheless: “siempreestán llegando como oleadas crueles que borran en un instante lo quedeseo retener e instalan con saña lo que quisiera olvidar” (96). Thisintroduces the near drowning experience provoked by an assault: “Temordí el brazo y arrancándome de tu lado me metí al agua corriendo.Estaba tibia, invitaba con insólito encanto a que penetrara en sumisterio y me aunara a él”, so much so that, “sentía que era el mar elque nadaba apresuradamente hacia mí” (96). After her subsequentrape and murder of the rapist, the section stops and changes direction:“Inmersa en el tedio de estas mañanas sin fin en que la claridad mehiere la vista, aprieto los ojos y la oscuridad se me llena de manchasluminosas”. 31 She articulates her wish: “Ojalá me penetrara un poco deesta luz y pudiera adquirir el don de la transparencia” (97). Hercharacter becomes physically and psychically split as she becomesincorporated into the last rays of the setting sun: “Miro por la ventana yme salgo fuera del cuerpo, desplazándome indefinidamente” (97).The protagonist’s persona merges with the dusk and then night:“Ya me he integrado al crepúsculo y ahora me convierto en nocheapacible que penetra por la ventana desde donde absorta, me dejoenvolver por la tenue oscuridad de mí misma” (97). Like the humanaxolotl,she is conscious of her transformation and her humanperspective remains as it does in “Paseo del lago”. She believes sheescapes her memories through physical transmutation. Images of lightand darkness are made more significant as the metamorphosis of thefemale subject is into the dark of night.With the exception of these previous conversions into aspectsof nature, the majority of Jaramillo Levi's mutating charactersmetamorphose into tangible objects. The protagonist of “Paseo al lago”,climaxes in physical death, disappearance, and corporealtransformation. It details the story of an unhappy couple who are invited31This image resonates with Maupassant’s homage to night “La nuit”: “J’aime la nuitavec passion”, “Il y faisait si clair que cela m’attrista et je ressortis le Coeur un peuassombri par ce choc de lumière brutale”. Maupassant, “La nuit”, Guy de Maupassant:Contes et Nouvelles (Paris: Albin Michel, 1964) 1138-1143. “Night”, “There was somuch light in there that I was depressed, and I came out again with my heartsaddened by the clash of brutal light” The World’s Best Mystery Stories (Melbourne:United P, 1935) 230235
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To my other half
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2.3 Dobles and Duplos: Latin Americ
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Psychiatry’s fugues are literatur
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I certify that this thesis does not
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Introducing the Double:The Seductiv
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1.1 Double, Double, Toil and Troubl
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1.2 Fantastic Psychoanalysis and th
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2.1 The North American Double The A
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2.2 Modernismo and its Masters: Dar
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3.1 Shoes and Mirrors: Images of Do
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3.2 Double Whammy: Mixed Doubles Th
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Appendix B: Enrique Jaramillo Levi:
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Appendix C:Thematic Taxonomy of Dou
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List of Works CitedThe Avatar in Pa
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