THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.1 Double, Double, Toil and Trouble The Avatar in Panamasome ‘daemonic’ power” is rife but psychoanalysis insists thecharacters’ view of fate is mainly arranged by themselves and theirinfantile influences. 50 Ironically, the belief of being pursued is selffulfillinginsofar as the conviction itself determines one’s own fate. The‘perpetual recurrence of the same thing’ is not in the least amazingwhen it relates to either active or provocative behaviour in order toachieve that end or to a character trait which is specific to thatindividual. For example, if a character repeatedly forgets appointmentsor events and is known to be absentminded, it would not strike thereader as extraordinary that he does so and that it would cause a chainof determining events to occur. However, what seems to be mostimpressive is when the character who remains passive and appears tohave no influence over events, nevertheless meets with the samerepetition of fatality (22-23). In these cases the character has usuallyacted impulsively and has responded instinctively to an external forcewithout realising why or without taking into consideration themonumental havoc it may wreak in the character’s life.The belief that an event occurs because it is meant to mayproduce uncanny feelings of familiarity. These recognisable sensationshave a double potential significance: either they can reflect the past inthe case of déjà vu which is also closely related to reincarnation, or theymay foreshadow the future by bringing the sense of foreboding andinevitability of a particular happening to the forefront. Freud reports thatin all his cases of obsessional neurotics, no-one had been surprised tohave encountered or experienced a person or incident after having hada premonition of such. This production of coincidences is an instance ofthe omnipotence of thoughts, one of those uncanny devices whichfacilitate the emergence of the alter-ego. 51Fantastic Double LivesThe secret or double life evokes untold instances of duplicitousexistence, whether the alternative lifestyle is conscious or unconscious,or through a physical metamorphosis. Assuming a new identity, livingabroad, multi-lingualism and bisexuality may all be examples ofconscious doubling behaviour whereas the process of sublimation intocreative pursuits, or the experimentation with mind-altering substances,states, and medications, and its subsequent behaviours may beunconscious. A character’s physical metamorphosis might be aconscious or unconscious transformation but is always realised throughfantastic means. The archetype of a literary transmutation is exemplifiedby Bram Stoker’s Dracula, whose eponymous central character shapeshiftsinto various animal forms. Such lycanthropy, no longer restrictedto the domain of wolves, rarely produces simultaneous doubles as the50 Freud, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” 21.51 Freud, “The Uncanny” 392-393.28