Style and Technique

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In an essay on aspects of the short story published in Cuba in 1962, Cortázar defined the short story as “a mysterious brother to poetry” in which fantasy is shown to rule supreme, as opposed to the false empirical realism created by the Western notion of logic and causality. This definition applies to “Axolotl” because the story shows how a fantastic reality bursts into the realm of the everyday. In this short story, as in many others, Cortázar first gains the reader’s confidence, putting readers at their ease by creating a normal setting and conventional characters in familiar situations. Soon, however, readers find themselves trapped by a strange, nightmarish turn of events that threatens and ultimately destroys the logical, routine reality described up to this point. Cortázar has also likened the short story to a photograph. Unlike novels and films, which provide abundant details and complete, well-rounded plots, the short story—like a photograph—limits its scope to a single frame, a fragment of reality that forces the reader to supply the missing pieces. One of Cortázar’s finest stories, “Axolotl” is elegantly written. It uses suspense well and explores the mysterious boundaries between the human and the animal kingdoms.

Historical Context

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Existentialism's Impact on Cortazar

"Axolotl" was first published in 1956, during a period when Cortazar resided in Paris, France, rather than his homeland of Argentina. The narrative unfolds in Paris and seems to be set in the era it was penned. According to critic Terry J. Peavler, the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, a significant philosophical movement of the time, influenced Cortazar's "Axolotl." Existentialism, which originated in France, inspired numerous authors of the 1950s, including Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and French writers Albert Camus and Jean Genet. Peavler draws a parallel between "Axolotl" and Sartre's book Being and Nothingness, published in the same year. Sartre believed that individuals shape their own identities through their choices and actions. He argued that people should not view themselves as having fixed characteristics or categories, but also should not consider themselves as pure nothingness. At the end of Cortazar's story, the axolotl hopes the narrator will "write all this about axolotls" to find an existential balance between being (the rational mind celebrated in most Western philosophies) and nothingness (the unconscious mind, represented by the axolotl's primitive nature). The story implies that achieving this balance requires experiencing both extremes, as the narrator has, before such self-awareness can be attained.

World War II and the Absurd

The devastation of World War II (1939-45) left Western culture in a state of moral disarray. In a world turned upside down, artists found previous norms and traditions inadequate for expression. This led to widespread experimentation in art, theater, philosophy, literature, and film. The chaotic new reality often manifested in works of an absurdist nature. Eugene Ionesco, a prominent figure in absurdist drama, wrote in an essay on Franz Kafka: "Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless." Peavler believes Ionesco's observation could equally apply to the characters in Cortazar's stories from the 1950s. Absurdism is a facet of magic realism, or the "boom," an innovative movement in Latin and South American literature that began in the 1950s and extended into the late twentieth century, with Cortazar being a pivotal figure. However, magic realists often avoid the term "absurdist" to describe their work, preferring "fantastic" instead. Both terms reflect a post-World War II shift in literature towards redefining reality, moving away from rational and convenient interpretations of the everyday world. Cortazar uses the term "fantastic"...

(This entire section contains 784 words.)

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to describe his fiction and his unique understanding of reality. By "fantastic," he refers to an alternative to what he calls "false realism," which is the belief that "everything can be described and explained in line with the philosophic and scientific optimism of the eighteenth century, that is, within a world governed by a system of laws, principles, causal relations, well-defined psychologies, and well-mapped geographies." Through his use of fantastic elements, Cortazar aims to challenge these man-made formulas and simplistic explanations of reality, which lead to both the repression of the unconscious and, politically, to totalitarianism (the oppression of people). When a group or nation is coerced into thinking a certain way by those in power, violence often ensues. In 1956, Soviet troops suppressed uprisings in Poland and Hungary because these "satellite nations" sought to reinterpret the rigid laws of Soviet communism. During the 1950s, many artists, including Cortazar, incorporated absurdist or fantastic elements in their work to open minds, liberate repressed thoughts and feelings, and combat restrictive thinking. Their goal was to enhance self-awareness and foster greater tolerance of diverse viewpoints.

President Juan Peron of Argentina

Juan Domingo Peron (1895-1974) served as the president of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and again from 1973 to 1974. Despite Julio Cortazar referring to him as a dictator, Peron remains one of the most significant political figures in South America during the twentieth century. Following the overthrow of the civilian government in 1943, Peron, a career military officer and leader of a politically active military faction, took charge of the labor department. Garnering support primarily from the working class and various labor unions, Peron was elected president in 1946 and re-elected in 1951. His administration's policies of economic nationalism and social justice eventually led to monetary inflation and political turmoil, culminating in his ousting by a military coup in 1955. In exile, Peron continued to wield considerable influence in Argentine politics and was re-elected in 1973 by a substantial majority. Julio Cortazar, a writer known for his strong political opinions, was staunchly anti-Peronist. Arrested in 1945, Cortazar was compelled to abandon his academic career in Argentina. He subsequently became a translator and, disillusioned with Argentina's oppressive regime, relocated to Paris in 1951. "Axolotl," written in Paris around the time of Peron's ousting, is viewed by some critics as a metaphor for the rebirth of a new Argentine generation, supplanting a corrupt and fascist one.

Literary Style

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Point of View

The narration of the story blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy. It is told from a first-person perspective, with the narrator's consciousness or physical being partly transformed into an axolotl. This transformation introduces significant ambiguity since the "I" and "me" of the narrator may refer to either the man before the transformation or his axolotl-self narrating the story. The reflections of the human self are juxtaposed with the insights of the axolotl self. While the ambiguous "I" emphasizes the connection between the man and the axolotl, the contrasting perspectives also highlight the division between the man outside the tank and the part of his consciousness that migrates into the tank. The reader's need to follow the continuous shifts between these viewpoints mirrors the protagonist's own shift from a narrow human perspective to a broadened understanding post-transformation. The constant interchange of perspectives undermines the reliability of rational thought and emphasizes the multiplicity of reality.

Structure

The structure of "Axolotl" differs from most short stories as it is circular rather than linear. The main events occur over a few days, during which the narrator focuses on the crucial phases of his transformation. The opening paragraph itself forms a closed circle, serving as the center of the larger circle of the story: "There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl."

This cyclical structure consists of four distinct parts. The first part describes the narrator's gradual approach to the intriguing yet unfamiliar world of the axolotls. He observes and narrates their behavior from outside the aquarium glass: "I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass." The second part focuses on the metamorphosis process: "No transition, no surprise," the narrator remarks, "I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass." At this juncture, the man believes he has transformed into an axolotl while retaining his human consciousness—"buried alive," as he describes it—"condemned to move lucidly among unconscious creatures." In the third section, the sense of horror dissipates as he becomes so immersed in his new reality that he perceives things he couldn't from the other side: "a foot grazed my face, when I moved just a little to one side and saw an axolotl next to me who was looking at me." The fourth part, found in the final paragraph, serves as an epilogue. Here, a clear separation between two worlds is evident. Although the narrator has achieved a sort of unity in understanding both the man's perspective and the axolotl's, he cannot convey this understanding to the man who remains outside the glass. There is a divide between the man who turned into an axolotl and the man whose visits to the aquarium have ended. Nonetheless, the axolotl believes "that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he." The axolotl's hope that the man will write "all this about axolotls" completes the cycle, as the story the man will write appears to be the very narrative readers have just finished.

Symbols

Cortazar is renowned for using numerous symbols in his fiction. A symbol is a word or phrase that suggests or represents something else while retaining its original identity. In literature, symbols merge their literal meaning with the suggestion of an abstract concept. In the story "Axolotl," the axolotl can be seen as a symbol of the narrator's unconscious mind. His transformation—or the transformation of a part of his consciousness—into an axolotl operates on a symbolic level. This implies that Cortazar aims to do more than merely tell a tale about a man turning into a salamander. The axolotl further symbolizes fundamental drives and desires, including the quest for self-fulfillment. Like the snake, the axolotl represents the instinctual self. The narrator's struggle for understanding is highlighted by his references to "the mystery," "nonexistent consciousness," "mysterious humanity," "secret will," and "diaphanous interior mystery," all of which were claiming him. These references emphasize the necessity of symbols to convey something that cannot be entirely expressed in rational terms.

Other significant images within the story that can be interpreted symbolically include the aquarium's glass wall, which serves at different times as a mirror, a barrier, and a gateway; the golden eyes of the axolotls, which seem to the man both vacant and expressive; and the aquarium's enclosed, watery world.

Magic Realism

Cortazar is a key figure in the genre of magic realism. Magic realism (also known as magical realism) is a term used to describe the prose fiction of Julio Cortazar, Jorge Luis Borges (Cortazar's mentor), Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Juan Rulfo, Mario Vargas Llosa, and many other authors who blend the fantastic with the mundane to create new literary ways to represent life. Their works defy conventional novelistic expectations through radical experiments with subject matter, form, style, and temporal sequence. They merge the everyday with the fantastical, the mythical, and the nightmarish, and their writings blur traditional boundaries between what is serious or trivial, horrifying or humorous, tragic or comic.

Literary Techniques

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The narration of the story blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy. It is told by a first-person narrator, whose consciousness or physical form becomes partially transformed into an axolotl. This transformation creates significant ambiguity, as the narrator's "I" and "me" can refer to either the man before the change or his axolotl-self recounting the tale. The reflections of the former are intertwined with the insights of the latter. While the ambiguous "I" underscores the connection between the man and the axolotl, the two contrasting perspectives also highlight the division between the man outside the tank and the part of his consciousness that enters the tank. The reader's task of following the constant shifts between these perspectives mirrors the protagonist's transition from a limited human viewpoint to a broader understanding after his transformation. This continual interchange of viewpoints questions the reliability of rational thought and emphasizes the multiplicity of reality.

The structure of "Axolotl" deviates from most short stories by being circular rather than linear. The primary events unfold over several days, during which the narrator concentrates on the key phases of his transformation. The opening paragraph forms a closed circle that serves as the center of the story's larger circular structure: "There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl."

This cyclical structure can be divided into four distinct parts. The first part involves the narrator's gradual fascination with the alien world of the axolotls. He observes and describes them from outside the aquarium glass: "I saw from very close up the face of an axolotl immobile next to the glass." The second part addresses the metamorphosis: "No transition, no surprise," the narrator states, "I saw my face against the glass, I saw it on the outside of the tank, I saw it on the other side of the glass." At this point, the man believes he has transformed into an axolotl while retaining his human mind—"buried alive," as he describes it—"condemned to move lucidly among unconscious creatures." In the third part, the initial horror dissipates as he becomes so immersed in his new reality that he perceives what he couldn't before: "a foot grazed my face, when I moved just a little to one side and saw an axolotl next to me who was looking at me."

The final section of the story acts as an epilogue, marking a clear distinction between two realms. Although the narrator has attained a form of unity by understanding both the man's viewpoint and the axolotl's, he is unable to convey this insight to the man who remains outside the glass. There exists a separation between the man who transformed into an axolotl and the man whose visits to the aquarium have stopped. Despite this, the axolotl believes "that all this succeeded in communicating something to him in those first days, when I was still he." The axolotl's hope that the man will write "all this about axolotls" brings the story full circle, as the narrative the man is expected to write appears to be the very story the readers have just encountered.

Cortazar is renowned for incorporating numerous symbols in his fiction. A symbol is a word or phrase that implies or represents something else while retaining its original identity. In literature, symbols merge their literal meaning with the suggestion of an abstract idea. In the story "Axolotl," the axolotl can be seen as a representation of the narrator's subconscious. His transformation—or the transformation of a part of his consciousness—into an axolotl operates on a symbolic level. This indicates that Cortazar aims to do more than merely narrate a tale about a man turning into a salamander. The axolotl also symbolizes fundamental drives and desires, including the quest for self-fulfillment. Similar to the snake, the axolotl symbolizes the instinctual self. In his quest for understanding, the narrator refers to "the mystery," "nonexistent consciousness," "mysterious humanity," "secret will," and "diaphanous interior mystery," all of which were drawing him in. These references highlight the necessity of symbols to express concepts that cannot be fully articulated through rational means.

Other significant images in the story that can be interpreted symbolically include the aquarium's glass wall, which at different times serves as a mirror, a barrier, and a gateway; the golden eyes of the axolotls, which appear to the man as both vacant and expressive; and the enclosed, aquatic world of the aquarium itself.

Ideas for Group Discussions

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In "Axolotl," Cortázar blends fantastical elements with everyday situations and characters to develop his unique perspective on reality.

1. Post-World War II literature by Latin American authors is often characterized by magical realism. This period's writing is marked by the absurd or the fantastic, rejecting a strictly rational view of reality. Discuss how this trend has also appeared in American literature from the same era.

2. Among all the animals at the Jardin des Plantes, what traits led Cortázar to choose the axolotl, or Mexican salamander, as the central focus of his story?

3. Analyze the critical perspective that "Axolotl" symbolizes the emergence of a new Argentine generation, taking the place of the corrupt, fascist regime in power when the story was written.

4. Why does the narrative voice of the story hope that the man will document the axolotls?

5. What does life "outside" the tank symbolize in contrast to life "inside" the tank?

Social Concerns

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Julio Cortazar's short story "Axolotl," from the collection Final del juego (End of the Game, and Other Stories), has intrigued, puzzled, and captivated readers and critics since its release in 1956. Cortazar's fiction blends fantastical and often strange plots with everyday occurrences and characters. His approach encourages readers to challenge the widely accepted belief in Western thought that life is governed by facts. Instead, Cortazar aims for readers to grasp that reality is subjective, shaped by individual perception. Cortazar is a key figure in magic realism, a literary movement in Latin America that emerged in the 1950s. His contemporaries, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes, also merge the fantastic with the mundane in their works, striving to explore new methods for literature to depict life.

Literature of this genre gained prominence following the horrors of World War II (1939-45), which left Western culture in a state of moral disarray. In a world seemingly gone mad, many artists found traditional norms and conventions inadequate for expression. This led to widespread experimentation in art, theater, philosophy, literature, and film. The tumultuous new world was reflected in works that embraced absurdist themes. Eugene Ionesco, a prominent playwright in the theater of the absurd, wrote in an essay on Franz Kafka: "Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless." Critic Terry J. Peavler suggests that Ionesco's observation could equally apply to the characters in Cortazar's 1950s stories.

Absurdism is a component of magic realism, or the "boom," a revolutionary movement in Latin and South American literature that began in the 1950s and extended into the late twentieth century, with Cortazar being one of its key figures. However, magic realists rarely use the term "absurdist" to describe their work; they prefer the term "fantastic." Both terms signify a post-World War II shift in literature towards a new definition of reality, rejecting rational, convenient, and limiting interpretations of the everyday world.

Cortazar uses the word "fantastic" to describe his fiction and his unique understanding of reality. By "fantastic," he refers to an alternative to what he calls "false realism"—the belief that "everything can be described and explained in line with the philosophic and scientific optimism of the eighteenth century, that is, within a world governed by a system of laws, of principles, of causal relations, of well-defined psychologies, of well-mapped geographies." Through his use of fantastic elements, Cortazar aims to challenge man-made formulas and simplistic explanations of reality, which he believes lead to the repression of the unconscious and, politically, to totalitarianism (the oppression of peoples).

When a group or nation is coerced into thinking a certain way by those in power, it often results in violence. In 1956, Soviet troops crushed uprisings in Poland and Hungary because these "satellite nations" sought to reinterpret the rigid laws of Soviet communism. During the 1950s, many artists, including Cortazar, incorporated absurdist or fantastic elements into their work to expand the mind, liberate repressed thoughts and feelings, and combat restrictive thinking. Their goal was to enhance self-awareness and foster greater tolerance of diverse perspectives.

Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) served as the president (Cortázar referred to him as a dictator) of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and again from 1973 to 1974. He was a pivotal political figure in South America during the twentieth century. After the civilian government was overthrown in 1943, Perón, a career military officer and leader of a politically active military faction, became the head of the labor department. Backed mainly by the working class and various labor unions, Perón was elected president in 1946 and re-elected in 1951. However, his program of economic nationalism and social justice eventually led to monetary inflation and political unrest, resulting in his ousting by a military coup in 1955. Even in exile, Perón remained a significant influence in Argentine politics and was re-elected by a substantial majority in 1973. Cortázar, a writer with strong political views, was staunchly anti-Peronist. In 1945, he was arrested, forcing him to abandon his academic career in Argentina. He became a translator and, disillusioned with Argentina's oppressive government, moved to Paris in 1951. "Axolotl" was penned in Paris around the time Perón was deposed by the military. Some critics interpret Cortázar's short story as a symbol of rebirth, not of the spiritual self, but of a new Argentine generation supplanting a corrupt, fascist one.

Like many other "boom" writers, Cortázar was deeply engaged in politics. In numerous cases, politics has been as influential as aesthetics in shaping an author's reception in Latin America, and Cortázar's situation is particularly complex. In the early 1960s, Cortázar, like many Latin American intellectuals, became a fervent supporter of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution and other Marxist or leftist movements. However, readers in these countries criticized his work for being overly focused on fantasy and lacking "revolutionary" content. In response, Cortázar argued that as long as an artist's ideological stance is clear and well known (everyone was aware of Cortázar's commitment to socialism), no directives or critical dogma should constrain his creative freedom. He emphasized the importance of creating enduring works of art: "The most serious error we could commit as revolutionaries would be to want to adjust literature or art to suit immediate needs." Moreover, he asserted that any truly creative act is revolutionary, as it advances the current state of art and looks toward the future.

Compare and Contrast

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1950s: Zoos are popular attractions for both children and adults. Animals are taken from the wild and spend their lives in captivity.

1990s: Zoos predominantly breed animals in captivity rather than capturing them from the wild, following the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973. Less than one percent of large mammals in U.S. zoos are wild-caught. To support the breeding of captive animals, many zoos have improved the animals' habitats to more closely mimic their natural environments.

1950s: Post-World War II literature by Latin American authors is characterized by magic realism. This style features the absurd or fantastic and rejects a rational view of reality.

1997: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a renowned master of magic realism, gains critical acclaim for his new book, News of a Kidnapping, which explores the Colombian drug trade of the 1980s.

Literary Precedents

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A significant precursor to Cortazar's novel is The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka's 1915 novella in which a man awakens one morning to discover he has been transformed into an insect.

Cortazar stands as one of the key figures in magic realism. This term describes the prose fiction of authors like Julio Cortazar, Jorge Luis Borges (Cortazar's mentor), Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Juan Rulfo, Mario Vargas Llosa, and others who blend the fantastic with the mundane to explore new literary representations of life. Their work disrupts conventional narrative expectations through radical experiments with subject matter, form, style, and temporal sequence. They merge the everyday with the fantastic, the mythical, and the nightmarish, creating writings that blur traditional boundaries between the serious and trivial, the horrific and ludicrous, and the tragic and comic.

Cortazar is widely regarded as one of the most significant authors of the mid-century literary "boom" in Latin and Central America. This period saw a group of writers, including Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Alejo Carpentier (Cuba), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Jose Donoso (Chile), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia), and Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), elevate Latin American literature to international prominence in less than thirty years. This literary flourishing was unprecedented in Spanish literature since the "Siglo de Oro" (the Golden Century—the seventeenth century).

Bibliography and Further Reading

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Sources

Rabassa, Gregory. "Lying to Athena: Cortazar and the Art of Fiction." Books Abroad, Vol. 50, No. 3, Summer 1976, pp. 542-547.

Further Reading

Alazraki, Jaime, and Ivan Ivask, eds. The Final Island. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
The Final Island is a compilation of essays, including two by Cortazar himself, exploring the interplay of magic and realism in his fiction. The essays are insightful, though their advanced language and concepts may be challenging.

Garfield, Evelyn Picon. "An Encounter With Julio Cortazar." In her book Julio Cortazar, pp. 1-11. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1975.
Garfield's study starts and concludes with personal interviews she conducted with Cortazar at his home in Provence, France. This work provides invaluable insights into Cortazar's philosophies, preferences, and even his nightmares, shedding light on the symbolism in his writing.

Neyenesch, John G. "On This Side of the Glass: An Analysis of Cortazar's 'Axolotl'," in The Contemporary Latin-American Short Story, edited by Rose S. Mine. Senda Nueva De Ediciones, 1979, pp. 54-60.
This essay examines "Axolotl" within the context of Latin-American literature, focusing on its imagery and themes.

Peavler, Terry J. Julio Cortazar, pp. 1-23. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Peavler contends that interpreting Cortazar's works as merely "psychological" or "political" leads to a shallow understanding. He argues that Cortazar's true aim is to explore the nature of fiction itself. This is a comprehensive and accessible study.

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