Summary Of Axolotl By Julio Cortázar

The story “Axolotl” by Julio Cortázar tells us the tale of a man who slowly transforms into an animal. The relation begins with the man explaining how he met the axolotls by chance one spring day. According to the narrator, the lions and panthers from Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes, i.e., the zoo that belongs to the botanical gardens Jardin des Plantes, were his friends, but since the lions were ugly and sad and the panthers were asleep, he decides to go into the aquarium one particular morning. There he becomes acquainted with the animals he latterly turns into, the Mexican aquatic creatures known as axolotls. By the end of the tale, the point of view changes to a first person plural with the voice representing the axolotl’s collective thoughts. The transformation process was slow yet full of events that mark the progression of the narrator’s metamorphosis, such as his feeling of connection, his constant visits and still observations and his communication with the axolotl’s. …show more content…
A way to deem this event feasible would be for the narrator to have schizophrenia, the illness which renders the patient unable to discern between real and unreal experiences. Nevertheless, whether the intention of Cortázar’s ambiguity regarding the transformation and its different perspectives can be put into debate, the man does seem to transmute into the animal he feels so connected with. At first he desires to comprehend them, but understands the fact that what they must feel by being condemned to the narrow and claustrophobic floor of the tank can never be grasped outside of their living space. Then the metamorphosis occurs and he becomes just like them – trapped and imprisoned inside not only one of their little bodies, but their oppressive tank as well. The process ends and the now amphibian consoles his solitude by hoping the strange outsider who stopped visiting will once write about the