Analysis Of Axolotl And The Night Face Up

Have you ever read a story, where you are so interested in what is going on; and then within the last seconds of reading, the whole story is flipped upside down? This is exactly how I felt while reading Julio Cortázar’s work in, Axolotl and The Night Face Up. I have watched multiple movies, television shows, and read books with magical realism at the end, but never have I read a story with these kinds of endings. The reason I am picking these two stories, is because of the effect that it had on me, by it’s crazy ending, and fictional situations in the story. This authors’ illustrations made me think, re-read, and analyze the readings thoroughly. Other readings that I have read, made me question the odd things going on, but never have I realized …show more content…
While discussing these odd things, I am not going to summarize the writing, I’m just going to emphasize on specific situations that occurred. One thing that I noticed, was that, the amount of times that character mentions the creatures eyes, was tremendous. I started to recognize this, around the fourth time that he mentioned it. The first time the Axolotl’s eyes were mentioned, was in the quote, “There were nine specimens, and the majority pressed their heads against the glass, looking with their eyes of gold at whoever came near them” (Axolotl 356). After reading this quote, I was not expecting the character to be so obsessed with their eyes. I noticed that the character mentioned the Axolotl’s eyes a total of twelve times, and this shocked me. I thought that this was such a weird thing to be obsessed with, a Mexican lizards eyes. This repetition made me analyze this observation, more in depth. “The eyes of the axolotls spoke to me, of the presence of a different life, of another way of seeing” (Axolotl 357), was said in the reading, and this got me thinking. It seems that the character starts seeing things, in the life of a axolotl’s eyes. It is, as if, he wanted to “be in their …show more content…
After he starts smelling this during his dreams, he starts to have visions of him “running from Aztecs who had set out on their manhunt” (The Night Face Up 363). Little did I know, the start of these “dreams”, were also the start of the magical realism ending. Get this, the story is actually about a man who is held captive in war, and he was having a dream about being in a motorcycle accident. Crazy, right? This absolutely shocked me, I could not believe that this was the end of story was actually the complete opposite of what was