SOURCE: "Boundaries of the Self: Autonomy versus Dependency in La invención de Morel" in Chasqui, Vol. XX, No. 2, November, 1991, pp. 108-15.

In the following essay, Snook examines the psychological boundaries that define the self as presented in The Invention of Morel.

In many of Bioy Casares' major novels and short stories, the author places his male protagonists in settings of physical confinement and situations of high anxiety from which they wish to flee. Thus many of his characters can be viewed as fugitives or "escape artists" who employ a variety of methods to elude their unpleasant circumstances. However, the characters' flight from the confines of prison, the island, the asylum, or the body, does not lead to personal freedom, as each protagonist ultimately succumbs to another form of subjugation or dependency. This basic pattern of flight from confinement, that culminates in some new form of mental or...