ENH2770 Short Fiction Axolotl by Julio Cortázar PDF

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Assignment (can also be used as notes for test/test condition essay) on Julio Cortázar's short story Axolotl....

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Introduction Identity may seem, to the casual thinker, to be a singular concept: to identify is to recognise, understand and label something or someone. But when it comes to the nature of oneself or one’s fellow man, identity is ambiguous, fluid and complex: it is multiple. A single person possesses a number of possible identifiers, for example actions (incidents and anecdotes remembered by oneself and others), physical appearance, socioeconomic status, occupation and awards of merit. A single person may be thought of in different ways by different people; for example, the kindly father at home to the children is the tyrannical boss in the office to the employees.

An individual is also multiple within himself. His sense of self may change over time according to the people around him, life lessons inspiring a rejection of past actions or values or the discovery of a new interest or talent. He is also multiple at any one point in time: his life may be compartmentalised into work, family and play, and his mind will be multifaceted in the way that psychoanalytic and psychiatric professions have attempted to define. Freud understood personal identity as consisting of the id, ego and superego (base self, everyday self and higher self). Jung was concerned with the unconscious mind (the place of symbols and dreams), the persona (a self to show the world which, if identified by the individual as synonymous with his self, became a false self) and the shadow (the unexplored, unintegrated and repressed parts of the self). The higher self of man, shadow self and persona are demonstrated within the story of the Axolotl.

Identity can be confusing, layered, challenged, falsified, illusory and simplified by those who observe us and by the expectations or roles of society. Axolotl considers the animal aspect of man and the intellectual versus the spiritual capacity of man.

Axolotl by Julio Cortázar Axolotl is the story of a man who switches identities with an axolotl, watches the man that he used to be lose interest in him, and hopes that he will write (the story that is being narrated) about axolotls. The story is written by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar, one of the seminal figures of magical realism. Magical realism is a predominantly Latin American style of writing that emerged in the 1950s. In contrast to surrealism, which is dream-like in its reflections of the subconscious mind and disassociation from the material world, magical realism is set in the real world, but with one impossible or fantastical element. In contrast to stories of the ‘fantastic’ or ‘uncanny’, magical realist fiction is presented in a manner that is straightforward and matter-of-fact.

The story of identity represented by the axolotl concerns the conscious versus the unconscious mind; of an individual and of a nation (the collective unconscious, Jung called it). It is also about the identity of man: humans feel that they are “above” animals, that their intellect makes them too special to be ruled by their base (animalistic) instincts. But there is an identity that we share with the what the axolotls represent: an identity as a being concerned with something higher or spiritual that can lead to a deep way of understanding (as opposed to understanding facts, logic etc). The axolotl is a creature of mysterious, watery depths – this is the place in our unconscious where our true self lies, and where we can access creativity, truth and understanding.

The axolotl represents something beneath the surface – something suppressed or oppressed. There are two levels this story works on: one esoteric (or spiritual) and one political. On one level the story is about the subconscious mind of every individual that is sometimes glimpsed – for example in dreams or creative ideas and inspiration – but is often buried under the more mundane concerns of our waking minds. Water is a symbol of the unconscious, and the tank, at various points in the story, is at once a barrier, or a mirror, or a gateway, symbolising our complex relationship with our unconscious selves.

The suppression of the unconscious mind is linked in this story with the oppression of ideas and, more generally, the oppression of a people. So the axolotls also represent an oppressed

people or way of thinking – not just on an individual level but regarding the ethos of a society. At one point the narrator describes the axolotls as being like “witnesses” and “horrible judges” and he wondered “what semblance was awaiting its hour”. An oppressed people still see and judge the injustice around them, even if they unable or too afraid to do anything about it at the time. They bear witness to unjust regimes and their judgement can only be controlled and quashed for so long. The “hour” will come when things will change; the shadow self of the nation will emerge and there will come to light a new national identity.

In 1951 Julio Cortázar emigrated to France, because he was opposed to the Perón government, in power at the time, which he called a dictatorship. The Perón government did not stand for dissident artists: numerous cultural and intellectual figures were imprisoned or forced into exile. Cortázar lived for many years in Paris, then lived out his final days in a rural area of France. He never returned to South America, although he did become active in Latin-American human rights.

Axolotl was written in 1956 – after Cortázar emigrated to France. The story was originally written in Spanish and is set in France, as evidenced by the place names. Concepts of foreignness and interrelations of different countries and their languages are introduced further with a discussion of the word ‘Axolotl’. Axolotls are a Mexican animal. Although the story is Spanish, the Spanish name ajolote is only given as background information: axolotl is the word that the French (and, of course, the English) would use and it is from the Aztec language Nahuatl, which was originally a predominant language in some communities in Mexico and is still one of the languages spoken there. The genus is also given: Ambystoma, which is Latin – the dead language which all Romance languages (including Spanish) are related to if not derived from. The stratum of languages is reflective of the strata of ideas and ways of thinking within a society and within an individual.

Axolotl, in its conclusion, makes a comment on the identity of the writer. The writer (if he choses to write what he has experienced as an axolotl i.e. what he has come to understand from his unconscious mind) is the man who loses interest in the axolotls and walks away at the end of the story. The axolotl hopes that man will write all this, “believing he’s making up a story”. There is truth in fiction. It may not be a literal truth (for example, obviously no human has ever turned into an axolotl), but a truth about the more esoteric nature of the world

and the human experience. The writer can be a messenger of the unconscious mind: his own mind and that of his people....