The Night Face Up Julio Cortazar Character Analysis

The mind can create an image or a scenario so well, that it becomes impossible to distinguish between what is reality and what is mere illusion. This issue, of what is real and what is made up, is explored in The Night Face Up by Julio Cortazar. The protagonist faces uncertainty of his fate after an accident and copes with it by creating false narrative in a nightmare. This story is so detailed that he eventually believes to be his reality. Under duress, such as that experienced by the protagonist, a person is capable of creating an illusion so overwhelmingly authentic that it is mistakenly perceived as reality in order to cope with their situation. The story of the protagonist begins with him setting off to work in the morning. While

The dream becomes so real it takes on characteristics of reality. “It was a curious dream because it was full of smells and he never dreamed smells.” (Cortazar #266). He is 5 senses are used in reality and also in his dream. Throughout the dream his description of what is around him is very descriptive “Far off, probably from the other side of the large lake, they would be burning bonfires; a reddish gleam rose in that part of the sky.” (Cortazar #267). This same descriptiveness is used in reality as well. The only difference between the dream and reality was the definitiveness of the dream. In reality he was not aware what happened during the accident. In the dream, though, he was able to receive a more tangible cause of death where he knew all that had happened. With the illusion mirroring reality so well it is not a wonder the protagonist had such a hard time differentiating between what was his dream and what was really going on. With the added incentive of knowing exactly what happened in the dream it was easy for the protagonist to prefer the illusion over the reality. His mind had the ability to create such a lucid mirage as a way to cope with his