Essay Julio Cortazar's Axolotl Misidentified as Magical Realism

The sublime is an art work is meant to bring out the emotion in the viewer or have the viewer reflect personal experience. Jung (2014) states the sublime

Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” is a good example of magical realism because the characters have a normal life, they read , they knit, and the do normal people stuff. For example, in the story it says,” once the morning housework was finished, she spent the rest of the day on the sofa in her bedroom knitting (38).” this sentence proves magical realism because it's what people do every day, it contributes to an everyday life, it may not be what everyone does but it's common in the real world. Therefore, “House Taken Over’’ is an example because it includes details of ordinary

Hernan (also Hernando or Fernando) Cortes was born in Medellin, Estramadura, in Spain in 1485 to a family of minor nobility.

During the fifteenth century, two major state-based agrarian civilization, Aztec and Inca empires, played a huge role by making up the population of the Americas. With this being said, a lot of the Americas history lies within the boundaries of the empires. This history includes literary tradition, records about the civilizations culture, and observations of the Spanish who conquered them in the early sixteenth century. Document 12.1 concentrates on giving evidence through the eyes of two Spanish observers, both of whom at least tried to connect with the civilizations and record first hand records.

     Francisco Pizarro was a conquistador born in Trujillo, Spain in about 1471. His father, Gonzalo Pizarro, was an infantry captain and he taught Francisco how to fight at an early age. Francisco Pizarro never learned to read and write but he was full of adventure.

Before the 15th century, the Indians in the Americas were not connected with the world and would remain that way until Columbus's exploration. In the beginning of 15th century, the Aztecs were the dominant group in Mesoamerica leaded by Montezuma, the last leader, before the Spanish conquest. In 1519, Hernan Cortez led the Spanish mission to explore and conquer the New World. This paper will compare three primary sources about this event. First, an informing letter sent from Cortez to King Charles V, the king of Spain. Second, the Broken Spears which is an Indian recollection about the conquest of Mexico. Lastly, Bernal Diaz’s (one of Cortez’s men) account was written by him to share his experience with Aztec

     The Aztecs were an American Indian people who ruled a mighty empire in Mexico from the 1400's to the 1500's. The Aztecs had one of the most advanced civilizations in the Americas and built cities as large as any in Europe at that time. They also practiced a remarkable religion that affected every part of their lives and featured human sacrifice. The Aztecs built towering temples, created huge sculptures, and held impressive ceremonies all for the purpose of worshipping their gods. The Spaniards destroyed their magnificent empire in the year 1521, but the Aztecs left a lasting mark on Mexican life and culture .

Magical realism is a type of writing where two views of reality come together. There are numerous of ways magical realism is expressed in Latin American writing. A very common one amongst stories is open-ended conclusion in which we the readers just have to accept it. Usually magical realism is used as a metaphor for something more meaningful. One story that conveys a lot of magical realism is The Third Bank of The River by João Guimarães Rosa. The story is about the narrator's dad who was quite the quiet man, who one day bought a boat fit for one. He entered the river and never spoke a word to another soul again. The son is the only one who stays at the house in case of the father's return. He leaves food out for him so that he will survive, until one day he makes an offer to his father, and ends up fleeing in terror.

Pain is something that few can resist showing, because on some level their survival depends on releasing some anguish. The eyes show all too readily the blunt realities of our world. They do this through more than tears, because some people have seen things so horrible and wretched that they have forgotten how to cry. One has but to look deeper, and the sparkle of his eye will tell a thousand stories far greater than with what the Arabian Nights ever enchanted its audiences.

It can show fantasy, darkness and it is possible that the old man in the story never existed. It is the capacity of the narrator’s imagination which makes him creates the old man. It all seems that nothing that he says happens in real life. For instance, the old man eyes, heartbeat, the night, the police, and so on, are all fruits of his fantasy. The eyes could represent his psychological sin and guilt, and the old man depicts his own personality. He wants to get rid of the eyes because it has a darkness sin which does not allow him to have a good sanity. The narrator separates the old man’s personality to his eye, and in the end, he assumes by getting rid of the eyes he could still love the man and live in peace with his mental sanity. However, this strategy does not work out well and turned against him because does not only kill the eyes but also the old

The book contains a captivating use of symbolism making the story more interesting and understandable. This magnetizes the reader into the book. "At the first show of dawn, great Alcinous left his couch, as did that ravager of cities,

In Julio Cortazar’s short story, Axolotl, the young man is searching for answers to his life. He finds these answers in the small, Mexican salamander trapped within its enclosure at the Jardin. The axolotl challenges the young man to see the simplicity behind the mysterious guise of the small amphibian. The young man’s daily visits to the Jardin only make the appeal of the axolotls greater. In those visits he begins to see not only the creatures simplicity, but also their neotenous tendencies and connection to death; all of which contribute to his association and union with them.

Esquivel's novel follows the tradition of magical realism in its purest form and creates a welcome entry into the Latin American canon whereas Borges' stories, most written more than forty years prior to the publication of Esquivel's novel, use magical realism in a much more complex way and ultimately forge a literary tradition of their own.

His “unlined” face has yet to have the heat of a forge baking the sweat off his face and cracking the skin transitioning him into a man. A man that needs to learn the craft of forgetting the burdens everyday life gives him. The line, “eyes amber as the resin from trees too young to be cut.”(ll 10-11). reinforces that he has to grow and be ‘seasoned’ before he is truly ready to make the transition and tackle the craft of drinking until numb. These lines like an artist waiting to sculpt their stone into something else. The reference of the eyes gives a relation to the difference of her father’s young and hopeful eyes that have not seen what her grandfathers have. This is important as it gives the wisdom and long struggle that separates the apprentice from the master. Eyes have also been described as windows to the soul and the way she relates her father’s eyes as young and translucent that have yet to meet the destructive force that well in her grandfather’s eyes.

Rather it is the old man’s that is so unsettling. Any time the eye looked upon him his. It is that eye by which he is consumed and that eye that sends him into madness. It pushes him to wish to never have to look upon, or be looked upon by, that eye again. His solution, in what seems a rational choice to him, is to kill the old man. With a similar precision as the Montresor took in “The Cask of Amontillado”, the man in “The Tell-Tale Heart” has devoted himself to the perfect method to dispatch the old man.