Julio Cortázar’s short story: revolution the mimesis to criate the simulacrum

Abstract

The present essay intends to show that Julio Cortázar’s short story “Continuidad de los parques” (1956), viewed as na example of the Latin-American fantastic literature, presents a new concept that diverges from the classical mimesis, getting closer to the mediatic simulacrum. The theoretical background applied is the concept of representation and its tragectory since the Aristotelian writings, going through the concept of verisimilitude, and reaching the concept of the simulacrum. The analytical aspects that exemplify the thesis are the time and the theme of the text. Considering the context of inscription of the text, the circular time and the meta-fictional thematic, it is possible to say that Cortázar’s short story is a work based on a new concept of representation that do not intend to represent a given reality, but to (re)create it, aesthetically dialogging with the mediatic languages, being this hybridism a feature of modern fictional texts.

Key words: Short story; Meta-fictionalism; Circularity.