A tensive interpretation of suspense in Continuity of Parks, by Julio Cortázar

Abstract

This article examines, under the interpretation of tensive semiotics, the effect of sense of suspense in the short story Continuity of Parks, by Julio Cortázar. It takes as a starting point the ascending canonical tensive scheme of suspense, which foresees, as a tensive cipher, a gradual increase in intensity, while the intelligible dimension of the discourse would tend to decrease. Based on the definition of suspense presented by Claude Zilberberg (2011, p. 136) as "the extensive dilation of an intensive expectation", it is defended, in the analysis of this text, a complexification of the canonical tensive scheme, to the extent that the suspense stems from movements of enunciative positions that overlap in the text and that configure a singular tensive path, in which the intensive subdimensions of tempo and tonicity gain strength at the end of the short story, without, however, compromising the exercise of the presence of the cognitive, intelligible dimension of extensity, which remains active in the discursive field, even in the moment of surprise, thus keeping the reader-enunciatee in a state.