The Childhood as a psychological category and as a space of depth in Cortázar’s narrative

Abstract

Drawing on a phenomenology of daydreams, this article provides analytical insights into Julio Cortázar’s literary technique, specifically regarding his foundational narratives of adolescence and the creation of a space for intimacy. It proposes a distinction between "childhood" (*niñez*)—understood as a normative psychological category—and "infancy" (*infancia*)—conceived as a realm of imaginative depth—and examines this duality within Cortázar’s narrative work. Through a Bachelard-inspired phenomenology of daydreams, the study explores how this latter form of childhood constitutes a sphere of intimacy and creativity, standing in contrast to the "childhood" regulated by psychoanalytic and cognitive discourses. The analysis focuses on the short story "Después del almuerzo" ("After Lunch"), which reveals a dialectic between a "narrated childhood" (oneiric and foundational) and a "situated childhood" (subject to social norms). The story illustrates the transition into adolescence as a moment of conflict between intimate interiority and external impositions, uncovering a "topology of intimacy" from which emerges what the author terms the "golden child"—a figure of goodness and transcendence suppressed by adult rationalization. The research critiques traditional interpretations that psychologize or pathologize childhood, proposing instead a phenomenological reading that values ​​daydreams and literary confession as pathways toward an autonomous subjectivity, one not confined by clinical categories.