THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.1 Double, Double, Toil and Trouble The Avatar in Panamathis scenario the second self is from outside the period of the first self’slife. The alternate self may come forward from the past as Poe’s Bedloecharacter does in “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains”, and the principalcharacters in Cortázar’s “La noche boca arriba”, “Las armas secretas”,and “Lejana” do. Conversely, the double might come backward from thefuture as the second Borges does in “Borges y yo” (168). 62The second self potentially signifies a certain stage ofdevelopment not belonging to the present, but falling within the originalself’s lifetime. This might be a stage not reached and often prefiguredas a premonition, or it is a stage already experienced that manifestsitself in the eeriness of déjà vu or just plain memory. Wilde’s DorianGray is an example in which the eponymous character’s portrait revealsthe physical and moral consequences of his debauched, hedonisticlifestyle at some stage in the future. In this way the two stages are seenas separate phases of a single life with the second self never beingwholly unknown to the first. 63 It could be argued artists use theprotagonist as a literary representation of themselves at various stagesof their lives and thus provide an alternative existence: it has also beennoted that journal or diary writing has the potential to become an outletfor articulating a secret life. 64Beside Oneself: Impaired RealityIn the fiction of the double, the character’s experience ofdifferent consciousness levels is prevalent and, depending on how theyare induced, may cause the protagonist to deviate into an alternaterealm or existence. The ingestion of alcohol, drugs, medications andanaesthetics can cause characters (and authors) to descend into astate of inebriation or drug induced euphoria. These conditions arecharacterised by loss of insight, impaired reality, and subsequentamnesiac episodes during which uncharacteristic behaviour is carriedout. Hypnotic states, dreams, daydreams, reminiscences and memoriesare also fully exploited in the literature of the double as an outlet for thereworking of one’s existence.The character’s resulting confusion created by the blurring oroverlapping of these realities may give rise to severe lapses in luciditywhich are conducive to madness. One of the symptoms of these62 Several of Cortázar’s and Borges’s stories are examined in 2.3.63 Keppler 172.64In one theory of literary creation, Jean Delay emphasised the process of “creation ofa double”: “anyone keeping a personal diary tends to develop a dual personality thatgradually emerges in that diary, so that a peculiar interpersonal relationship developsbetween the diarist and his fictitious second self. This second self may then at a givenpoint come to life, so to speak, in the form of a literary character” Ellenberger 169-170.32