Continuity of Parks

Explore the ending of the story, paying close attention to the last sentence. How would you characterize the ending? Does it resolve conflicts presented in the story?

Imagine an ending in which it is revealed that the character from the novel went through with the murder of the reader-protagonist. Do you think it would alter the story? Why or why not?

The protagonist of the frame narrative is represented as a passive immersive reader. How does Cortázar demonstrate the dangers of this type of reading? How does he use the story to advocate a different way to engage with literature?

How do you understand what the reader-protagonist experiences in the second half of the story, from the point at which he becomes a “witness” to the scene in the cabin up to the ending where his assassin stands over him with a knife? Does the continuity of the two narrative worlds simply continue to represent his imaginative immersive reading experience? Or does this continuity establish a more “literal” interpenetration of these two worlds?

Look at the use of figurative language—metaphor, simile, analogy, symbol, motif—in the text. Choose one example and discuss it in relation to one of the story’s themes.

Compare and contrast the moods and tones of the story’s two narratives. What kind of atmosphere does the reader-protagonist inhabit? What activities is he engaged in there? What about the atmosphere and activity in the mountain cabin? How do the two atmospheres inform each other and contribute to the larger themes of the story?

Is it most accurate and meaningful to understand “Continuity of Parks” as being controlled by a single narrative voice? Or should it be viewed as a fusion of two distinct narrative voices, one belonging to the frame narrative and the other to the novel the protagonist is reading? Explain your response.

Discuss how foreshadowing is used in the story.