The novel explores the cyclical nature of life and death and the connection between childhood and old age through shared fears and fantasies and a mutual lack of bodily control. Donoso invokes the
Imbunche myth to symbolize the process of reduction of the physical and intellectual self, turning the living being into a thing or object incapable of interacting with the outside world, and depriving it of its individuality and even of its name. This can either be self-inflicted or forced upon by others.
The myth comes from the oral tradition of
Chiloé Island, an island of the southern coast of Chile. In its physical manifestation, it is a grotesquely disfigured being that has been sutured, tied, bound and wrapped from birth. In this way, its orifices are sewn shut, its tongue is removed or split, its extremities and sexual organ bound and immobilised. It is then kept as a guardian to a cave. It is the product of magic and witchcraft. It is the incarnation of the very realistic fears we feel as children, when monsters, magic and imaginings all seem real – they are the deeply rooted fears that, despite rationalisation, remain present (albeit dormant) in the recesses of the subconscious.
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