Desdoblamiento espacial en El otro cielo de Julio Cortazar

Abstract

In Julio Cortazar’s story “El otro cielo” (Todos los fuegos el fuego, 1966) we find, simultaneously, two cities (Paris and Buenos Aires) in time periods that are also different (second half of the XIXth century and first half of the XXth century, respectively). This bi-location works as the starting point for the splitting process of the protagonist’s self: the Argentinean capital is the city of conformity and duty, whereas the French one is the space of desire; desire to be someone else, the space of otherness. The passageways of both metropolises, where the character always arrives, unconsciously, loyal to the ritual of the flâneur, stand up as the access gates to each one of the urban areas. The latter, characterized through a game of oppositions, underline the presence of the double motive in the text.