29 pages • 58 minutes read
Julio CortázarContinuity of Parks
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1964A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Frame Narrative
“Continuity of Parks” is structured as a frame narrative which is then given a surprise twist. A conventional frame narrative sets the stage for the introduction of another narrative or set of narratives. These narratives usually prove more significant than the initial frame. Sometimes this structure is identified as a “story within a story.”
In such a structure, it is common for the story to return to the frame narrative at the end. Thus, it presents a kind of closed, completed construction in which the frame narrative bookends the other narrative(s) presented in the story: frame narrative—central narrative(s)—frame narrative. When this device is used, clear distinctions between these different narrative levels are usually preserved.
The relation between these different narratives is always an important factor when considering the analysis and interpretation of a story in which they are used. In the conventional frame narrative, there generally is no confusion about which narrators, characters, locations, and events belong to which narrative. Cortázar’s use of the frame narrative in “Continuity of Parks” breaks with this standard separation between narrative levels. He folds these narratives into one another in order to employ the surprise ending and maintain a level of ambiguity. Narrators, characters, locations, and events from one narrative interpenetrate the other. The surprise “twist” at the end is an outcome of this experimental manipulation of the frame narrative device.
Ironic Foreshadowing
“Continuity of Parks” is a story that asks the reader to go back to the beginning once they have finished reading the story. Rereading it brings into view several hints given to the reader by the narrator as to where the story is leading to. Its extremely short length, unconventional structure, and surprise twist ending encourage readers to go back over the story to try and answer what exactly has happened and how exactly it has happened. The way in which the two narrative levels are folded together leads the reader to look for “clues” that indicate when and where this interpenetration starts in the story.
Searching through the story allows one to find moments of knowing, or “clues” and “hints” about what is to happen, that only can be appreciated after completing the story. Retrospectively, then, these hints can be understood as “foreshadowing” what is to come. Foreshadowing is a technique used by a writer to reveal what will come later in the story. Cortázar peppers “Continuity of Parks” with several statements early in the story that suggest to the reader that there is a connection between the two narratives he is presenting. For instance, when describing the reader-protagonist “sprawled in his favorite armchair, its back toward the door” (63), Cortázar is setting up the scene for later when the lover bursts in with the intent to murder the husband. In addition, Cortázar states that “even the possibility of an intrusion would have irritated him, had he thought of it” (63), indicating a level of irony because, of course, the reader-protagonist is about to be disturbed by this intruder. It is through these statements that the narrative shares information with the reader that is unavailable to the characters in the story. This sharing of knowledge between the narrator and the reader from which the characters are excluded is called “narrative” or “dramatic” irony.
At the start of the story and early in the frame narrative, there is a matter-of-fact report of the business the reader-protagonist takes care of on his return to his estate: “That afternoon, after writing a letter giving his power of attorney and discussing a matter of joint ownership with the manager of his estate, he returned to the book in the tranquility of his study which looked out upon the park with the oaks” (63). The “joint ownership” referred to in this case might also metaphorically extend to the “joint ownership” that the two levels of narrative ultimately have of the story itself. In another instance of foreshadowing, just the reader-protagonist has given over to his estate manager the power to act on his behalf, he then proceeds, as a passive immersive reader, to give himself over to the novel he is reading and so allows it to take control of his fate.
Open-Ended or Surprise Endings
Endings are critically important for establishing meaning in fiction, especially in short fiction. Short stories normally work within tightly controlled limits: a limited cast of characters, series of events, and set of themes. At its conclusion, the successful short story is expected to tie up loose ends, to resolve the relationships, problems, and ideas it presents.
Paradoxically perhaps, there is also an established conclusion of the short story, especially of the experimental short story, that does not attempt to resolve loose ends: the “open-ended” or surprise ending. Rather than resolving a situation or conceptual problem that has been introduced, the open-ended conclusion shows that there are different ways in which this situation may develop or that this problem be considered. It leaves some central features of the story’s meaning open to the determination of the reader.
Surprise endings may also amuse the reader with a jolt, or they may be used to summon a resolution to the story seemingly out of nowhere. However, in many cases, a surprise ending might seem like narrative cheap tricks, employed solely for shock value or used as an easy solution to some structural or thematic problem.
While the “twist” ending in “Continuity of Parks” may surprise the reader, it does not seem to offer an easy solution to the problems of the story. Most importantly, it does not resolve the problem of the relationship between the two levels of reality presented within its narratives. Instead, by twisting these levels into one continuous narrative, the ending leaves the reader with profound questions about the story they have just read and about the relation between fiction and reality. Although it may not provide the reader with the closure one often seeks at the end of “Continuity of Parks,” the surprise ending Cortázar uses does tie into two larger thematic concerns of the story—ways of reading and the power of literature. The conclusion insists that the reader confronts the difficult concept of the continuity of the narratives and collaborates in making the story’s meaning.
