Simulacra
About the Writer
Julio Cortázar was an Argentine novelist and short story writer who combined existential questioning with experimental writing techniques in his works. He was one of the four writers in Spanish American Boom of 1960 with Carlos Fuents (Mexico), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia). The Boom was the period when Spanish American texts got global readers. These four novelists had internationalized the literature written in the South American continent. Cortázar’s work ‘Hopscotch’ is an open-ended novel or antinovel in which the reader is invited to rearrange the different parts of the novel according to a plan prescribed by the novelist in the appendices.
Summary
The story ‘Simulacra’ shows the absurdities of family life and occupational bureaucracy. The story has the theme of the conflict between the need for doing and the ambiguity of doing. In the story, a family decides to build and elaborate gallows in their front yard. In the course of narrating the story, the writer reveals how the people in the family look like.
The narrator lives with an extended family. In his neighborhood, common people do things to boast of them or from a sense of obligation. His family believes that simulacra is useless. He proves that his family is uncommon as whatever a new thing or innovation they do in their place, becomes surprises or scandals.
The decision of making gallows brings all their family members together. They perform each and every task of founding the structure jointly. The building of the structure causes curiosity, annoyance and expectation in the neighborhood. Some of them think that the family are adding one or two floors to enlarge the house.
The building site is protected by the strong fences so that no one can interfere them. The neighbors protest and even threat the family. They try to stop the family members while they pull the poplar trunk. The police arrive when the neighbors complain about the construction. But the deputy commissioner is convinced that the family is working within the precincts of their own property and the complaints of the neighbors are the result of their animosity and envy.
After the completion of the task, the family members take supper. A crowd of around a hundred neighbors are spying on them. The family is having the pork and wine. Some of the family members shout and jump on the platform. the family becomes happy for being able to fix the structure. The neighbors seem disappointed and finally return their homes. The family goes to their bed and dream of fiestas, elephants, and silk suits.
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