The Fantastic

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Lisa Swanstrom, Final Paper :

FAUSTINE, DIANA, AND CHANTAL CAZALIS: Fantastic Doubles in the Fiction of Adolfo Bioy Casares

In the work of Adolfo Bioy Casares, women are often presented as "doubles" of other female characters. In La invención de Morel, for example, the mysterious Faustine is a projected duplicate of a real, flesh-and-blood woman who existed on Lagoon Island before she was recorded. In Dormir al sol, the narrator's wife Diana is a confusion of other characters who either bear her name or share her likeness. And in <<La muñeca rusa>> ("A Russian Doll") the young heiress Chantal Cazalis is mirrored by the hotel owner Felicitas, who loves Kid Maceira after Chantal rejects him. These "false women" work to form pivotal intersections between real and supernatural ontologies. They also help to maintain a significant structure of the fantastic as defined by Todorov--the ambivalent middle ground of uncertainty that exists when the reader is not sure whether reality or illusion is taking place within a story.

Beyond this, what purpose do the representations of such "false" women serve--and how do they work in the framework of the fantastic genre? In addition to working as pivotal intersections between the real and the supernatural, I will suggest that Faustine, Diana, and Chantal Cazalis operate in terms of the double as Sigmund Freud defines it in his analysis of the uncanny.

BIOY CASARES AND THE UNCANNY-DOUBLE

In order to explain Freud's doubles, it is first necessary to consider his notion of the uncanny, since it is from this particular definition that the idea of doubleness takes shape, especially in relation to the works of Bioy-Casares. In his essay <<Das Unheimliche>>, Freud lists the different variations of the word heimlich, which can mean--among other things--homely, familiar, and comfortable; and its corresponding unheimlich, which means unhomely, unfamiliar, and uncanny. The salient feature of the word uncanny is, according to Freud, its containment of the familiar within the strange, since something cannot be uncanny if it is not in some meaningful way also familiar, homely, and known. In this sense, the uncanny functions in a manner similar to what Todorov dubs the fantastic, since it, too, hinges upon two alternate states of being:

Through the appearance of the double, Bioy Casares' texts have something of the uncanny contained within them. In La invención de Morel, Dormir al sol, and "A Russian Doll," the paradoxically familiar-but-strange undecided nature of the unheimlich is expressed and embodied in the "double" female characters who betray the narrators. Such characters force the narrators through their ambivalent presences to question the real and the fictive. By isolating each double in Bioy Casares' work, I will attempt to examine what such representations express according to Freud's conception of "the double" in order to later expand upon his analysis.

In "The Uncanny," Freud devotes some time to outlining the concept of the double in terms of literature and psychoanalysis, identifying both what the double is and how it functions. In the first place, he defines the double as an instance in which a character fits one or more of the following conditions: she or he looks like another character; she or he identifies with another character; or she or he shares a form of "telepathy" with another character. That is to say, the double occurs when "there is a doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self" (356).

The function of doubling has its significance in psychoanalysis. Freud (citing Otto Rank) explains two ways the double can function, both of which stem from the ego's formation during the period of primary narcissism. The positive function of the double involves a protection in the face of death:

Yet the second function of the double has a more sinister significance, one that undermines preservation. Freud continues: "But when this stage has been surmounted, the 'double' reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death" (357). The double becomes something that the ego has "project[ed] outward as something foreign to itself…a thing of terror…"(358).

Both the form and function of the double as Freud describes it are expressed clearly in Bioy Casares' fiction. In La invención de Morel, the female double is the projected Faustine, a dark-haired beauty who haunts Lagoon Island with her three-dimensional presence, and who acts as a double of the real woman who existed prior to being recorded by Morel's immortality machine. Although she occupies physical space, her existence is predicated on the original Faustine's death. And because she both repels and attracts the narrator, Faustine inhabits the realm of the uncanny. Both familiar and strange, she teeters on the edge of indeterminacy.

Faustine's double functions both as a preservation against extinction and as an "uncanny harbinger of death." In the first place, Faustine works as a preservation against extinction in relation to the narrator. When he attempts to woo her by creating a flower garden, he states:

Although his words are, perhaps, figurative, Faustine gives significant meaning to his life, offering him a point of focus in an existence that is otherwise in a state of flux. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, Faustine also operates as an uncanny harbinger of death. She both reminds the narrator that her existence is contingent upon another's death, and because the narrator becomes so besotted by her that he records himself with Morel's machine, her presence foreshadows his own demise.

Examples of the "double" are also abundant in Dormir al sol. Although there are comparisons to be made between Lucio and Aldini, most of the doubles (triples? quadruples?) are doubles of Lucio's wife Diana. The first is her sister, Adriana, whose name contains Diana's name within it, and who looks strikingly like her sister. The second is Aldini's wife Elvira, who also suffers from an illness and who, like Diana, is put into the sanitarium by her husband. A third double is the "new" Diana who returns to Lucio after treatment. Although she has the actual body of Diana, she bears the transplanted soul of another woman. The fourth is Lucio's German shepherd, also named Diana, who shares with her human counterpart a pair of soulful eyes. Besides providing interesting and entertaining manifestations of the Diana character (whose name also holds a reference to the goddess Diana, who, like Bioy Casares' Diana, is childless), these "echoes" of Diana function in the manner Freud describes the functioning double in his essay, "The Uncanny."

The many Dianas offer Lucio a preservation against extinction, since it is not until Diana leaves him that we meet the dog, find out about Elvira, and get to know the flirtatious Adriana more intimately. Her doubles, then, remind Lucio of his wife's presence/existence, even though she is absent from him.

Yet Diana's doubles also operate in a manner similar to the second function of the double that Freud delineates. That is, while these Diana doubles might offer Lucio some guarantee against the absence of his wife, they also paradoxically confirm her absence, reminding him with their similarity that his wife is not present.

Finally, in "A Russian Doll," the double of Chantal is found in the character Felicitas, who acts as Chantal's positive mirror image. She too acts against extinction, because she takes care of Kid Maceira when Chantal renounces him for an older man. Her name, too, is a flip of Chantal's, offering a remedy of happiness (Felicitas) to the treacherous and unreliable Chantal (chanta). The two characters work in tandem to fulfill Freud's requisites for doubling: Felicitas as the preservation against extinction, the kind and nurturing force that supports Kid Maceira; while Chantal Cazalis is the uncanny harbinger of death, who sends several men to their end at the bottom of a toxic lake.

Hence, all three examples operate according to Freud's paradoxical paradigm of preservation/annihilation. However, I would like to expand upon Freud's exegesis of the double in order to determine what further significance, if any, these doubles express.

FEMALE DOUBLES:

To anchor his arguments regarding the uncanny and the double, Freud examines E.T.A.'s short story "The Sand-Man" in terms of psychoanalysis, arguing that the crux of the story depends upon the protagonist's childhood relationship with his father. Hoffman's story involves a tormented young man named Nathanael who is convinced that the "Sand-Man," the eye-stealing terror of his childhood, continues to pervade his adult life. Nathanael's state of mind becomes so precarious because of this obsession that his life spins out of control. Spurned by his childhood friend Lothair, mocked by his schoolmates, and disbelieved by his lover Clara, Nathanael finds refuge in a wooden automaton named Olimpia. At the end of the tale, after a temporary rehabilitation, Nathanael spies the Sand-Man once more, and after a violent struggle with Clara, falls to his death from a high tower.

Freud locates the double in terms of Nathanael's father and the Sand-Man, saying: "the figures of his father and Coppelius represent the two opposites into which the father-imago is split by his ambivalence; whereas the one threatens to blind him…the other…intercedes for his sight." He furthermore identifies a double in terms of Olimpia and Nathanael, making the following claim:

I find both of Freud's explanations of the double compelling, but I would like to add a third "double" to the mix, in order to compare it to those doubles found in Bioy Casares' fiction. While Freud focuses exclusively on the character of Nathanael, I would like to emphasize Clara and her double, the wooden doll Olimpia. And while Freud asserts that Olimpia stands in as "Nathanael's feminine attitude towards his father" I would like to analyze Olimpia's connection to Clara. This is not to contest Freud's assertions (endnote 1); rather, I suggest that in his definition of the double, Freud offers a refractory theory that can be utilized in ways that are not limited to one reading. Accordingly, I will examine the Clara-Olimpia double in order to determine its significance to the character of Nathanael, so as to subsequently note how similar character doubles function in relation to the narrators of Bioy Casares' fiction.

Olimpia is Clara's double in a variety of ways. The primary connection, however, between the two characters is that both are objects of Nathanael's affection. Clara, as the patient and rational comforter functions as Nathanael's preservation against extinction, while the lifeless, loveless Olimpia acts as the uncanny prelude to his death.

Although Nathanael claims to love Clara, he achieves no satisfaction in his relationship with her. In fact, she seems to repel him with her sharp intellect and sound rational judgement. This comes out in the text when Nathanael receives a letter from Clara in which she urges him to let go of his delusions and he responds dismissively to her brother Lothair, saying "I am very sorry that Clara opened and read my last letter to you; of course the mistake is to be attributed to my own absence of mind." (7). Furthermore, when Clara attempts to comfort his agitated mind regarding the glassmaker, Nathanael spurns her rudely, accusing Clara of being cold and life-less, only to later fall in love with a woman who actually is.:

The full irony of this invective becomes clear when Nathanael becomes besotted by Spalanzani's daughter, a beautiful young lady who spends her days in silent contemplation. Whereas Clara has little tolerance for Nathanael's wild and feverish utterances about his father, the Sand-Man, or the mysterious eyeglass hawker, Olimpia gives him her undivided attention:

A soul-less automaton made of wood, Olimpia is attractive to Nathanael because she is silent, subdued, and offers no challenge to his male authority. She is merely the subject of Nathanael's representation, her identity formed solely by Nathanael's projection of one onto her. She has no identity apart from this.

Clara and Olimpia operate in tandem, one as the inverse of the other, in order to showcase Nathanael's frustration with the objects of his love. These two characters can be viewed in terms of Nathanael's attitude towards women, which reveals a repulsion and tension regarding the female subject and a preference for a feminine object. Furthermore, Nathanael's violent swings of temperament can be viewed as moments of frustration regarding his attempts to master the situation with Clara (endnote 2).

The Nathanael-Clara-Olimpia relationship and its implications regarding the female subject are reflected in Bioy Casares, most clearly in La Invención de Morel. Faustine, like Olimpia, is quite literally a subject of male representation. Both Morel and the narrator share the same love interest in Faustine; and it is during their respective courtships that they attempt to represent her.

Morel pursues Faustine relentlessly, hoping to secure her affection by capturing her soul with his machine--a machine that records all of Faustine's parts, without capturing her whole. Once the recording is complete, the object of his love becomes pure simulation. Just as Nathanael, when he cannot master Clara's piercing intellect instead projects a more tractable female identity onto the lifeless Olimpia, Morel secures Faustine by re-working the real--recording and projecting her temporally-dislocated double.

Similarly, the narrator attempts to woo Faustine through representation. When he makes the garden for her, in addition to inscribing it with sweet words, he attempts to represent the object of her love:

In both cases, Faustine resists representation, yet Morel succeeds in trapping her through the properties of his invention. She becomes an Olimpia, a male projection of a female identity.

Although La Invención de Morel aligns most readily with this analysis, his two other texts also bear out to some extent. In Dormir al sol, for example, Diana is both a subject and object of male representation. She becomes a confusion of other women and a German shepherd, her identity scooped out and transplanted into another female form. Additionally, Chantal-Felicitas operates tangentially as subject-object double, since the selfish heiress Chantal rejects Kid Maceira, while the woman who will finally have him (Felicitas) offers her succor and support with little sign of agency. In fact, the title of the story makes a tidy metaphor for the women within it, especially when Felicitas comments on the Russian doll in her apartment:

By viewing Faustine, Diana, and Chantal Cazalis (and their others) in terms of the Olimpia-Clara double, the function of such characters reveals an interesting attitude on the part of the narrator. Through their female doubles, all three narrators demonstrate an ambivalence toward women as subjects and a frustrated desire to obtain female love by projecting false identities onto female objects. Because they operate in this manner, the female doubles in the fiction of Bioy Casares work in tandem with the fantastic genre.

CONCLUSION: THE FANTASTIC DOUBLE

In his book The Fantastic: a Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov defines the fantastic as a type of narrative in which a supernatural event takes place that leaves the reader and narrator with two options: either the event is an illusion or the event has occurred and reality is mediated through mysterious forces. The fantastic, he writes, "occupies the duration of this uncertainty"(25).

This definition is appropriate to the work of Bioy Casares, since the characters who populate his fiction (projected beings, soul-transplant recipients, and bizarre water monsters) can all be viewed in fantastic terms. Additionally, La invención de Morel, Dormir al sol, and "A Russian Doll" operate in terms of Todorov's definition of the fantastic, since all three texts involve a great deal of uncertainty and hinge upon the narrator's hesitation between alternate realities.

While all three texts exhibit some form of the fantastic, most interesting is the fact that the hesitation of the narrator in each work hinges upon the female character and her double. In La invención de Morel, the narrator's reactions to Faustine form the most interesting moments of his indecision. He is imbricated in his observations of her in ways that he is not with the other projections. Faustine is at the same time both cold and alluring; she possesses an air of attraction and repulsion, sustaining the atmosphere of ambivalence that defines the genre.

In Dormir al sol, the narrator's female object of desire is similarly pivotal. All of Lucio's anxieties involve his wife and her doubles, coloring his narration with doubt and hesitation. Finally, the fickle character of Chantal Cazalis in "A Russian Doll" is the impetus behind Kid Maceira's near fatal dip in the toxic lake and his encounter with the ravenous and fantastic monster. Chantal's character and romantic commitment to Maceira are thoroughly ambivalent, an ambivalence which her name betrays (chanta).

Because all of these character doubles carry with them a certain amount of ambivalence, they can also be viewed in fantastic terms. That is, not only do they represent the preservation/extinction dichotomy that Freud introduces; or, as I have suggested, the male tension in the face of a female subject, but they also work as fantastic agents.

In La invención de Morel the fantastic nature of the novel is revealed through the narrator's vacillating thoughts regarding the existence of Faustine. Similarly, in Dormir al Sol, Lucio's uncertainty regarding Diana keeps the fantastic in play. Finally, Chantal-Felicitas in "A Russian Doll" represents two alternate paths that are open to Kid Maceira.

In this sense, Bioy Casares' female characters hold a distinct place in terms of the fantastic genre. While Todorov emphasizes the hesitation that occurs within a text's diegetic structure, he locates the moments of indecision within the narrator. In Bioy Casares' fiction, however, such moments result from the ambivalence engendered by the female doubles. By introducing these "fantastic doubles," albeit with humor and a certain amount of self-reflexivity, Bioy Casares challenges and adds to the fantastic form.

END NOTES:

(1) Nor is my emphasis on Olimpia meant to suggest that Clara is the center of consciousness in this story. Such a claim would disrupt both Todorov's and Freud's contention that the fantastic-uncanny manifests only from the doubt raised regarding the reliability of the narrator. Since Clara is not our narrator (nor is Faustine nor Diana), it would be fruitless to make that assertion.

(2) Another possible conclusion about the Clara-Olimpia double is that it is representative of a deterred or hidden sexual impulse on the part of Nathanael. Nathanael's character is perhaps suggestive of homosexual desire, since he cannot cathect with Clara, and since the "woman" he ends up loving turns out to be a sexless amalgam of clockwork and wood. Todorov supports this possibility when he writes, "[h]omosexuality is another kind of love which the literature of the fantastic accommodates" (131). While it is not my contention that these relationships are explicit references to same-sex desire, the unfulfilled relationship with each woman is perhaps suggestive of hidden and/or deterred sexual impulse. I am not convinced, however, that such a reading would bear out in Bioy Casares' fiction.

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