ABOUT TWO FANTASTIC SCENES – GOETHE’S ELECTIVE AFFINITIES AND SILVINA OCAMPO’S PLEASURE AND PENANCE

Abstract

The idea of the article is to analyze the exhibition of fantastic scenes in the novel Elective affinities by Goethe and the short story Pleasure and Penitence by Silvina Ocampo. In both literary works we focus on examining the role of the game between punishment and desire, pleasure and penance and its consequences within the works. In this sense, the unusual physiognomy of the children found in the works signals images that unite real and fantastic. The central argument is that Goethe’s novel and Silvina Ocampo’s short story, the fantastic narrative form emerges from the junction between real and fantastic, especially when bringing together within the conditioning plots that permeate the narratives with possibilities based on a game between fantasy and mystery. The fine texture that marks the transit of the image of astonishment present in literary texts and the narrations of everyday life in the works are representative of the imposition of uncertainties and mysteries as attributes of the form of the fantastic story.