"Not a Bloody Bit Like the Man": Uncanny Substrata in James Joyce's Hades.

Abstract

In the Joycean “Hades”, under a surface of a certain naturalistic, grotesque beauty, a few dark elements are hidden. During the funeral in Glasnevin, the caretaker tells the story of two drunkards who went to visit a friends’ tomb during the evening. This comic anecdote hides a whole phantom narrative underneath. This story alludes to the too-frequent custom of those body-snatchers who went to the cemetery to loot tombs. The main reason for this macabre and horrendous practice was the enormous difficulties the medical profession had in obtaining bodies for anatomical dissection. The dead bodies that invaded a public space produce uncanny feelings in readers, feelings that Freud related in 1919 with the return of the familiar and the repressed. Therefore, under the beautiful veil of “Hades’” verbal fabric, whole uncanny narratives are hidden, infusing the episode with an extra, disturbing dimension and embuing it with an unexpected vitality.