ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Aura, "Constancia", and "Sleeping Beauty", act as a literary photograph that can be used to demonstrate the author's understanding of the past and its haunting nature. Although Circe's metamorphic effect is at the core of all of Fuentes's work, it is developed most prominently within his own literary production in Aura, "Constancia", and "Sleeping Beauty". The thematic variations in the author's works, the narrative turning points that he introduces in this "third child" of Aura promote a discussion on the horrors of the holocaust. The narrative techniques, the symbolism, and allegories of the baroque and the Gothic allow Fuentes's reader to dive into interconnected timelines that personify the ruins of the past. Both photography and literature create ambivalent texts where characters come to life but at the same time such characters are immobilized, paralyzed by the contingency of their medium.
