Dec 17, 2009

Axolotl | Characters

Narrator
The unnamed narrator of "Axolotl" is a lonely man who becomes so obsessed with axolotls (Mexican salamanders) that he becomes one—or at least, believes that he does. Cortazar provides few details about the narrator, but the details he does provide are revealing. It is a spring morning, and Paris is "spreading its peacock tail after a wintry Lent," when the narrator visits the Jardin des Plantes. He remarks that he is (or "was") a friend of the lions and panthers and had never before entered the "dark and humid" aquarium. This suggests that the narrator is...