Otro Juego: El Mundo Fantástico de Aura y la Necesidad de Crear una Realidad

Written in 1962, Aura belongs to the tradition of fantastic narrative. It is a novel that deals not only with a love that transcends the limits of time, but also with the reality and unreality of the duality of beings who are not content with life itself. The analysis it allows is vast, whether through the language used by Fuentes, the imagery he provides, or, even more so, the multiplicity of symbols contained in each dialogue. Aura blends the real with fantasy, the unusual with the mysterious. With its doubling of characters, Carlos Fuentes leads us down a path replete with dimensions and temporal planes that merge the past of his characters and bring them to 1960s Mexico, to a house on a still-existing street, Donceles 815. Thus, the narrative generates unsettling confusions about what is real and what is not. The so-called “time of doubt,” which Flora Botton Burlá argues arises from the ambiguity of the fantastic element, leads us to the present analysis. Aura, a beautiful young woman with green eyes; Consuelo, an old woman who finds pleasure only in devotion; and Felipe, a young historian who arrives with the mission of completing the memoirs of General Llorente (Consuelo's deceased husband)—these are four, and two, and one being who merges in a timeless love. In short, a work of supernatural or illusory events that reveals Aura and Consuelo to be the same person, and Felipe to be the reincarnation of General Llorente. Symbolism of an eternal, persistent love that Carlos Fuentes fuses into lines that are symbolic for Mexican literature.