Objetos de deseo en los cuentos de Silvina Ocampo

This dissertation studies the treatment of fantastic or magical objects in the short stories of Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993), member of the Sur literary group in Argentina which included some of the most influential writers of the twentieth century such as her friend and contemporary Jorge Luis Borges. I study how Ocampo's narrative technique uses objects to interrupt the protagonists' sometimes mundane lives as they reveal a hidden desire. These everyday, seemingly trivial, objects are also often the source of the fantastic element present in Ocampo's exemplary short stories. The first chapter places Ocampo in a literary context, highlighting her role in the Sur group. I study texts in which objects are directly related to the creative process of writing and link them to specific works by Borges, one of her salient influences. The second chapter provides textual analysis of the presence of fantastic objects in Ocampo's work: those that make their way into the textual space through dreams as well as others that trigger or undergo a metamorphosis. Articles of clothing play an important symbolic role in Ocampo's narrative as shown in the third chapter where the use of garments as a symbolic-fantastic element is analyzed. Before starting her literary career Ocampo studied painting under Giorgio de Chirico and Fernand Léger in Paris. The fourth chapter examines Ocampo's relationship with visual art, including the representation of paintings, photographs and other images in her work. Since desire may be viewed as a longing for something that has been lost and comes into being only through its absence, my conclusions address how Ocampo's protagonists frequently wrestle with hidden desires and how fantastic objects are associated with unsettling outcomes