Transformability around the silence: Towards a semiotics of the horror in «Throat of a black kitten», by Julio Cortazar

Abstract

This article analyzes the discursive traces of the constant traits and the meaning of the archetypal figure of the Werewolf in «Throat of a Black Kitten», story as part of the book Octahedron (1974), by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar (1914-1984). To solve this research purpose, the classification criteria and the theoretical assumptions of several specialists of the fantastic genre were used: Todorov and Campra in the semiotic circuit; Roas, King and Vax in the fictional dimension; and Jackson and Jung in the codes on the enunciation of alterity. Likewise, fundamental concepts were used by researchers from other fields of human knowledge, such as psychoanalysis and anthropology, in order to unlock the subject of lycanthropy as a paradigmatic image of metaphysical horror in Cortazar's fantastic literature.