THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.1 Double, Double, Toil and Trouble The Avatar in Panamaconsider and experience feelings of doubleness. 35 These unfamiliarsentiments invariably manifested themselves as impulses andbehaviours realised, ostensibly, beyond one’s control. Little consciouspower was exerted over these actions and forces as they originatedfrom beyond the realm of consciousness, the unconscious. In terms ofclassification, the double fits neatly within the sphere of the uncanny asthere would be few ordeals more terrifying and familiar than beingconfronted by a vision of horror, a portent of misfortune in the threedimensional form of one’s own image.Many of the literary devices ensuing from the uncanny can beseen in the characters’ psychological makeup. The omnipotence ofthoughts, the appearance of moving or dismembered body parts, thefear of being buried alive, reanimation of the dead, and animation ofinanimate objects all create an uncanny ambient which becomes fertileground for the double’s appearance. 36 Whether from the enigmaticeeriness of déjà vu, the existence of double lives, inscrutable instancesof premonitions and presentiments, or the notion of being possessedand consequently the victim of an inescapable fate, the characters inmany short stories treating the theme of the double may be tormentedby one or all of these ploys.Duplication, Division and Deathly RepetitionThe uncanniness Hoffmann succeeds in creating in his fiction islargely due to his canny manipulation of the double. According to Freud,Hoffmann exudes mastery at conjuring up uncanny emotions byexploiting the doppelganger theme not only in the physical sense but byhaving his character identify mentally on all cognitive levels with theidentical other. The original self then becomes indefinable or isconsumed by that other. By producing an alternate self in the firstinstance, the fictional character is doubled; by sharing its cognitiveprocesses with another, the self is divided; and by substituting one withthe other, the self is interchanged. This duplication, multiplication,division and substitution remain paramount to modern and postmoderntheories concerning the double as it is through these processes that the35 Uncanny is the approximation of the German word unheimlich which literally meansunhomely.36 Poe’s “Berenice”, Hoffmann’s “Sandman”, Maupassant’s “The Hand”, JaramilloLevi’s “El búho que dejó de latir” all feature severed body parts. Poe had a phobia ofbeing buried alive and this leitmotif is found in much of his work. Poe’s “Fall of theHouse of Usher” and “Ligeia”, Stoker’s Dracula, and Shelley’s “Frankenstein or TheModern Prometheus” all treat the theme of reanimation of the dead. “Dismemberedlimbs, a severed head, a hand cut off at the wrist, feet which dance by themselves, --all these have something peculiarly uncanny about them, especially when, as in thelast instance, they prove able to move by themselves in addition. […] To many peoplethe idea of being buried alive while appearing to be dead is the most uncanny thing ofall”. Freud, “The Uncanny” 397.23