THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

1.2 Fantastic Psychoanalysis and the Doppelganger The Avatar in Panamascarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde they soonbegan to turn towards the monstrous” (46).Although physical description does not carry the significance inEnrique Jaramillo Levi’s stories as it does in Jekyll and Hyde, images ofmasks and physical metamorphoses do feature in several of them. Theconfrontation with the double is an almost uncanny experience and in“Los anteojos”, Raúl assesses that “[s]ólo [su] cuerpo continuabasiendo el mismo, como si lo otro se tratara simplemente de unamáscara que no lo afectara”. 50 The transmutation in this case affectsonly a part of the body, the head. 51 In “El fabricante de máscaras” themask has a more explicit function; in fact it serves its original purposeby providing the mask maker with multiple identities: “al tomar otraidentidad […] tras ceñirse frente al espejo alguna de las innumerablesmáscaras; su propio rostro había llegado a ser una de tantas máscarasmemorizadas y rechazadas con vigor” (16). 52 “El búho que dejó de latir”also contains multiple references to masks: “removérsele la mascarilla,la mascarilla de pureza, máscaras máscaras, máscaras, incolorasmáscaras, lindas máscaras prendiéndose y apagándose”. 53In a trait that is repeatedly featured in the literature of thedouble, the sensory perception of one or both characters becomessensitively honed. Jekyll writes in his confession: “I have more thanonce observed that, in my second character, my faculties seemed tosharpen to a point” (51). This sensual hypersensitivity tends to lend thedouble a quality of the superhuman, of the immortal, and creates anambience of the eerie supernatural.Jaramillo Levi also uses a sharpening of the senses whichtends to herald a metamorphosis of some description as it does in“Germinación”, where the protagonist “se maravilla del grado dehipersensibilidad que lo llena. Sabe que la lengua ha dejado de ser elúnico vehículo de gustación” (104). 54 In “Las palomas” a woman who isabout to be transformed into a bird discovers her senses have becomefine-tuned to the point where “[t]odo tiene sonido. Oigo la yerba crecer,se alargan diminutamente mis cabellos” (110). 55 The hypersensitivity(later rejected as sensory fatigue) also serves as a warning that theoriginal character, prior to doubling, is vulnerable: in “El bulto”, “Tuve la50 “Los anteojos”, Duplicaciones, 98-100.51 Other stories of doubling using only a part of the body include Maupassant’s “Lemain”, Poe’s “Berenice”, Gautier’s “Le pied du momé”, and Gogol’s “The nose”.52 “El fabricante de máscaras”, El fabricante de máscaras (Panamá: Instituto Nacionalde Cultura, 1992) 15-17.53 “El búho que dejó de latir”, Duplicaciones, 169-178.54 “Germinación”, Duplicaciones, 104-106.55 “Las palomas”, Duplicaciones, 109-112.50