Julio Cortazar: Short Stories Literary Elements

Short story collection

The stories tend to be set either in Paris, France or in Argentina.

Cortázar writes first-person, third-person, and close-third narrations and often experiments with form when it comes to narration; some stories alternate between first- and third-person or explicitly discuss the function of narration.

Cortázar applies different tones and evokes different moods for his stories depending on the theme and subject matter. His more meta-fictional pieces like "Continuity of Parks" and "Blow-Up" strike at times an irreverent and ironic tone. On the other hand, the mood of "End of the Game," a fairly straightforward coming-of-age narrative by comparison, is somber and full of longing.

Cortázar's stories don't always conform to the binary structure of protagonist and antagonist—in some, the antagonistic forces aren't characters, but rather a set of circumstances or coincidences that act against the will of the characters, like in "The Night Face Up." However, in a story like "Bestiary," it's clear that Isabel could be considered the protagonist while the Kid could be considered the antagonist.

In "Axolotl," the major conflict is that the narrator has turned into an axolotl and is now trapped, fully conscious, in the body of an amphibian at the aquarium.

In "House Taken Over," the major conflict is that the narrator and his sister Irene's house is being broken into and gradually taken over by an unidentified group or force.

In "Continuity of Parks," the major conflict is that the characters in the estate owner's novel are converging with the estate owner's lived reality and are on a quest, it would seem, to kill him.

In "The Night Face Up," the major conflict is that a motorcyclist has gotten into an accident, and in the hospital ward continues to have terrifying recurring dreams that he is a Moteca tribesman fleeing from Aztec soldiers.

In "Bestiary," the major conflict is that Nino's uncle, the Kid, terrorizes his wife, Rema, and nephew, Nino. The conflict is underscored by the ominous presence of a tiger on their estate.

In "Blow-Up," the major conflict is that the narrator is stuck in a strange unreality in which he's floating among the clouds after being sucked into a photograph he took in the park.

In "End of the Game," the major conflict is that the narrator's cousin, Letitia, has attracted the attention of a commuter on the train from Tigre, but this young man, named Ariel, doesn't know that Letitia has a debilitating spinal condition.

The climax of the title story of the collection, "Blow-Up," occurs when the narrator, Michel, is pulled into the photograph and has to face the ghoulish version of the man in the parked car. Michel seems not to survive the encounter in any recognizable form and narrates the story from somewhere high in the clouds.

In "The Night Face Up," Cortázar foreshadows the fact that the Aztec-era dream is actually not a dream by including the detail that the protagonist can experience smell while being pursued in the woods, and he usually cannot sense smell in his dreams.

Cortázar alludes to other works of literature throughout the collection, especially adventure tales. For example, in "End of the Game," Letitia is reading Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail, a renowned writer of fantasy-adventure tales.

Cortázar tends to include pastoral imagery of the Argentinian countryside, and for his stories set in Paris, he emphasizes the city streets, the architecture, and the foliage.

A paradox of "Axolotl" is that after the narrator's consciousness transfers to the axolotl, his former self is still able to continue living his life in his human form. This is a paradox because if the narrator's consciousness vacated his human form, then there would be nothing left for the human form to carry on with; however, the story also suggests that only part of the man transferred to the axolotl, and that was the part of him that was obsessed with the axolotls in the first place.

In "Bestiary," the character of the Kid is a clear parallel to the presence of the tiger roaming through the house. Both are volatile, dangerous presences that force everyone else to avoid the room they're occupying.

In "Axolotl," the narrator spends much of the story personifying the amphibians and trying to pursuade the readers that the degree to which an animal appears anthropomorphic shouldn't be the sole determinant of whether we identify with said animal. Axolotls may not look anything like humans, but their eyes suggest an interior depth that the narrator has a strong desire to understand.