From ways of seeing to ways of being : a study of the phenomenological and ontological dynamics of vision in the fiction of Julio Cortázar

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the dynamics of vision in the fiction of Julio Cortazar can be successfully analysed as paradigmatic of phenomenological ontology. A close and comprehensive reading of Cortazar's oeuvre reveals that his models of visual perception are consistently framed by questions of being. Although reference is made throughout to a broad range of studies which treat perception and ontological concerns, the theoretical basis of this thesis is predominantly drawn from the work of Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Edmund Husserl (1858-1938), and Martin Heidegger (1889- 1976).