Understanding the human mind has always been important in literature especially after the wave of Formalism. The meaning became more important and layers of meaning in texts were discovered. Texts were started to be studied not only for their structure but also for context. Literary criticism is aided by psychology in this way. Freud’s theory that the mind is divided to three -conscious, subconscious, unconscious- helps critics dig into the layers of meaning in a text. The text is full of symbols just like dreams. Therefore, we should read the symbols so as to understand the real meaning. Julio Cortazar’s story ‘ Axolotl’ can be given as an example for such an analysis. 

Julio Cortazar is an Argentinian Boom writer born in Brussels who then moved to Buenos Aires and finally to France. He worked as a lecturer at universities. He was also a political radical who supported the Cuban Revolution. He was imprisoned because he joined a protest. After his release, he worked as a translator and moved to Paris. He translated Edgar Allen Poe into Spanish there. He was interested in writing and now he is accepted as one of the masters of the genre Magical Realism. His story ‘Axolotl’ is a great example which he represent his individual, political, artistic deeds and the battle of conscious and unconscious.

Briefly, the story ‘Axolotl’ is told by a man who has been transformed into an axolotl after watching them obsessively in an aquarium in France. Then, the axolotl sees the man watching them and hopes that he will write a story about it.

The narration blurs the line between reality and fantasy. The story begins in the past and breaks into present tense while the narrator conveys his ideas and perspectives after the metamorphosis.

The setting, an aquarium in Paris, suggest a historical evidence and themes isolation, imprisonment, or in Poe’s term ‘being buried alive’. Like an axolotl in the aquarium, a foreigner in a country -maybe Cortazar- feels imprisoned in the city he moved to. Moreover, the aquarium is a ‘liquid hell’ reminding of Greek Myths, a place of rebirth. The man transformed into an axolotl becomes a more enlightened being and that may be the reason why the story is written in the end.

The narrator is an ordinary man in the city who comes to the aquarium and obsessively studies the face of the salamander which reminds him of Aztects, his roots, because it represents the surpressed aspects of Latin American Culture destroyed by Europeans. 

Cortazar’s choice of word are intentional. As it is the title of the story, ‘Axolotl’ is a word from Aztec language which is one of the native languages of Latin America. It is the larval stage of a type of salamander. Furthermore, the words in the text such as ‘ambystoma’ and ‘larva’ are Latin words. Although Latin is a dead language, it is the base for European languages. Here, the use of foreign language also constructs the idea of foreignness.

On the other hand, animals represent the instinctual and primitive. Therefore, the axolotl may represent the id, unconscious of the writer. Cortazar may have used the animal as a symbol to liberate repressed thoughts or feelings. The glass of the aquarium may be taken as a mirror, or a barrier. The metamorphosis of the animal itself and man into it may refer to crossing boundaries between conscious and unconscious, or being the one and the other. By using these binary oppositions, Cortazar raises self-awareness and makes the reader think from different perspectives. Because, ‘Behind the facade, lies the truth.’

To sum up, Cortazar’s story ‘Axolotl’ shows us how unconscious of the writer affects his choice of words, creation of symbols, or the context even if the text may be thought to be written consciously. That’s why, in my opinion, Freud’s theory of the mind and symbols should be taken into account when analyzing a text like an analysis of dream. The light should be shed to find deeper layer of meanings both in the writer’s mind and our minds. And,  I think this is what art is for.