THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.2 Fantastic Psychoanalysis and the Doppelganger The Avatar in Panamaincreasing interest in the inner world of characters by employingtechniques such as internal dialogues, monologues, and the stream ofconsciousness narrative. This is applicable to both modern andpostmodern literature and in the latter is seen as decentring andfragmentation. 18The onslaught of experimental writing by twentieth-centurywriters went beyond the stream of consciousness concept and dealtwith the sub and unconscious workings of the mind. It moved towards aflow of words representing unconscious psychic life and often resultingin the eccentric use of language. 19 The term “modern” loosely describedliterature that broke from nineteenth century romanticism and realism.As writing which experimented with form and language, it was antimimeticand often self-consciously delved into the writer’s inner states.Modernism lent itself to the notion of duplicity within the writer and thusdivision and separation became located within the subject rather thanexternally from self to other. The writer began to turn inward and so thedouble, the conception of a fissure within the self, emerged. This waslater to be formulated by Freud as the conscious and the unconscious. 20Besides syntax and vocabulary, modernism brought freshsubject matter to writing, much of which is central to the literature of thedouble. Themes of isolation and solitude allowed writers to becomemore introspective; industrialisation ensured urban centres became thenew modernist settings, and the complexities of modern city life weredepicted in literary form. Themes of duality and the divided self weredue to the recognition that the unconscious was as meaningful as theconscious; that personality was both fragmentary and dynamic; and thatdistorted perceptions of reality as well as contradictions in experiencewere represented often because of multiple narrative perspectives. Inkeeping with the dualism of ideas, the elite were compared with theplebeian, writers with non-writers, cosmopolitan centres with the rural,and the international with the parochial. These were often expressed byironic juxtaposition or superimposition of hyperbole, deliberatelyunderstated language, recurrent symbolism and imagery. Modernismhighlighted the impact of language in literature, the linearity of narrativestructure, and paid attention to aesthetics in the form of linguistic andstylistic structure. It validated the fragmented text, the isolated momentor epiphany, and did not pointlessly reproduce the familiar. In anotherexample of the fusion of polarities, primitive myths, legends, andsuperstitions were not disregarded when coming to terms with thechaotic modern experience. This is a premise which resonates in LatinAmerican literary theory today. In summary, modernity involved the18 Hawthorn 135. See 3.2 Double Whammy: Mixed Doubles.19 James Joyce’s Ulyses is a case in point.20 Peter Nicholls, Modernisms: A Literary Guide (London: MacMillan, 1995) 18.41