Axolotl

“There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls. I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.”

In this opening paragraph of the story, the narrator introduces both the axolotl, the symbol around which the narrative is organized, as well as central conflict—the fact that the narrator has become an axolotl. The rhetorical movement from “thinking” about axolotls to “being” one prefigures the narrator’s Transformative Obsession.

“I was friend of the lions and panthers, but had never gone into the dark, humid building that was the aquarium. I left my bike against the gratings and went to look at the tulips. The lions were sad and ugly and my panther was asleep. I decided on the aquarium, looked obliquely at banal fish until, unexpectedly, I hit it off with the axolotls.”

This passage offers an example of indirect characterization of the narrator. Cortázar suggests the nature of the narrator’s isolation from the external world via his desire to form connections with animals, which is so strong that he describes it in mutualistic terms. The narrator does not simply become interested in the axolotls but rather “hits it off” with them—a phrase that implies reciprocity.

“I stayed watching them for an hour and left, unable to think of anything else.”

This is the beginning of the narrator’s obsession. The simple, direct clauses underscore the absolute lack of rationale surrounding the genesis of this obsession.