Monstrous Disembodiment and Ontological Uncertainty in Charybdis

Abstract

Charybdis is a well-known sea monster in both the ancient and modern imaginations resulting from her prominent appearance in the Odyssey. Yet, in contrast to her counterpart across the strait, Scylla, she has been overlooked by modern scholars, and few have examined what makes her monstrous in the first place. This article will argue that Charybdis should be understood as monstrous as a result of her lack of corporeality, which, in turn, also results in an ontological uncertainty about whether or not she is even a natural phenomenon or, rather, a supernatural monster. The type of fear and unease that Charybdis’s unique form of monstrosity exerts on humans can, then, be best described with reference to Mark Fisher’s concept of “the eerie” as a failure of presence where we expect it to be.