Julio Cortaz’s “Blow-up” is the story of one man’s perception. The Story begins with the character talking in the first person and later switches over to himself talking in the third person. At times the story is confusing not knowing what is real and overall if you can trust what the narrator is telling the reader. As the story continues Michel (main character) observes a boy and a woman interacting with each other. He immediately jumps to conclusions without ever actually ever hearing their conversation but telling the viewer what they are talking about and how they ended up at this point. “The boy had come on to the tip of island, seen the woman and thought her marvelous. The woman was there waiting for that because she was there waiting for that.” Michel himself goes into romantic fantasies about the characters as well. “Now the woman had swung around smoothly, putting the young boy between herself and the wall.” Rereading the article I feel as though this romantic aspect of the story is made up by the narrators own mind, never really happening because it all seems so absurd. Later in the story Michel gets a picture of the two and blows it up on his wall where he constantly stares at it and asses the story over and over in his head. He slowly becomes more and more obsessed as he evaluates the situation between these two strange “lovers”.
Chekhov’s “The Kiss” reminds me of some aspects in this story. Riabovich, who is the main character in this story, could be compared to Michel. Both of these characters become overwhelmed with a situation that most people wouldn’t think twice about after it had happened. Both characters are no better off in the end and both characters let their problems consume their lives.
The story also reminded me of Pablo Picasso’s Figures on a Beach. This is because I find this story to not be what it seems just as are many of Picasso’s paintings. In figures on the Beach it is hard to decipher the image because of how jumbled the two figures are.
L.G