La Transcendencia de la Memoria
Aura explores the corporeality of aging, the eternalness of desire, and the struggle against mortality through the use of memory and narrative. Carlos Fuentes uses the innovative narrative technique of second person narration in the present and future tenses to dramatize for the reader the sense of the peculiar amidst the familiar. Throughout the novel, he characterizes the initial realistic entry into a story that grows more disarming, more fantastical, yet more psychologically real as it evolves towards its strange conclusion. Through his novel, Fuentes raises the philosophical discussion of the concept of time in human existence. Philosophy professor David Hoy of UC Santa Cruz states in his book titled
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Not only is Aura revealed as a projection of Consuelo, but Felipe is manifested into General Llorente as well. Throughout the novel, Felipe relies on his watch often to give him some indication of time: However, his sense of reality gets distorted beyond comprehension after he sees himself in the old pictures of General Llorente. This is where we see a complete shift in Felipe’s perceptions and trust in the concept of time. His relationship with time changes as the narrator says,
His anger and frustration can be seen through how he senselessly criticizes a watch by calling it useless and tedious. Felipe disregards the idea of being able to measure time because for him, there is no past nor future; the two which are supposed to be separate have indefinitely become mixed. Through Felipe’s disconnect with time, Fuentes is trying to communicate to us the idea that time is intangible. We put a description on the concept of time as a measurement of the distance between an event and when we remember it. However without our memories, time means