justo, que no juzgué que requería una actitud especial" [I confess that I do not remember. It seemed so natural, so evident, so fair, that I did not consider it required a special attitude]. Childhood and adulthood Amícola suggests that Ocampo's intention is to create child characters that aim to demystify the idea of infantile innocence. Amícola proposes the example of confronting children versus adults to create a polarization. Suárez-Hernán also suggests that the children's narrative voice becomes a strategy to generate the ambiguity that is a part of the unreliable narrator; the reader always harbors doubts about the narrator's understanding of the facts as well as their credibility. For Suárez-Hernán, the stories show the asymmetry between the world of adults and the world of children; parents, teachers, and governesses embody the sanctioning institution and are often nefarious figures. Suárez-Hernán considers that women, children, and the poor in Ocampo's work act in a subordinate position dominated by stereotypes. According to Suárez-Hernán, the world of childhood is privileged over adulthood as an appropriate space to subvert social structures; thus, the child's gaze will be the instrument to undermine the structural bases and transgress established limits. However, Suárez-Hernán believes that the powers attributed to the girl and her perversity generate disturbance in the reader who cannot avoid identifying with the adult woman. Themes Ocampo's work has fantastical qualities, like her contemporary Borges. Critics note that Ocampo's writing particularly focused on transformations, such as metamorphosis, doubling, splitting, and fragmenting of the self. Critic Cynthia Duncan, from the University of Tennessee, contends that the fantastical elements concealed latent feminist themes:[Ocampo's] female characters, like Cristina, are not radical, outspoken feminists. They do not overtly criticize their husbands, nor do they rebel in predictable ways. They go about their lives quietly and submissively, until the fantastic intervenes to upset the traditional order that has been imposed on them. It is, perhaps, this aspect of Silvina Ocampo's work which makes it most disquieting to readers, male and female alike.Another critic, Patricia N. Klingenberg, has argued that the "raging, destructive female characters of Ocampo's stories should be viewed as part of her preoccupation with the victimization and revenge of women, children and 'deviants' in her works." Ocampo reportedly said that the judges for Argentina's National Prize for fiction in 1979 adjudged her work "demasiado crueles"—too cruel—for the award. Reflexivity The theme of reflexivity is present in many of