Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture

Abstract

Stories of a visit to the realm of the dead and a return to the upper world are among the oldest narratives in European literature, beginning with Homer’s Odyssey and extending to contemporary culture. This volume examines a series of fictional works by twentieth- and twenty-first century authors, such Toni Morrison and Elena Ferrante, which deal in various ways with the descent to Hades. Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture surveys a wide range of genres, including novels, short stories, comics, a cinematic adaptation, poetry, and juvenile fiction. It examines not only those texts that feature a literal catabasis, such as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, but also those where the descent to the underworld is evoked in more metaphorical ways as a kind of border crossing, for instance Salman Rushdie’s use of the Orpheus myth to signify the trauma of migration. The analyses examine how these retellings relate to earlier versions of the mythical theme, including their ancient precedents by Homer and Vergil, but also to post-classical receptions of underworld narratives by authors such as Dante, Ezra Pound, and Joseph Conrad. Arguing that the underworld has come to connote a cultural archive of narrative tradition, the book offers a series of case studies that examine the adaptation of underworld myths in contemporary culture in relation to the discourses of postmodernism, feminism, and postcolonialism.

The Mythical Underworlds of Francis Stevens and Daphne du Maurier

“…In Greek mythology the god Hades reigns over the land of the dead (also called Hades as the house of the god), and several Greek narratives describe the underworld, its topography and its inhabitants; Book 11 of Homer's Odyssey is the earliest example. Such descriptions and visions of the afterlife -later rewritten by Roman authors, such as Virgil in the Aeneid -became a tradition which has strongly influenced Western culture until today (Fletcher 2019).…”

Shame, Guilt, and Medical Error in Ann Patchett's State of Wonder

“…As Judith Fletcher and others have noted, State of Wonder recasts Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness within the neocolonial context of Big Pharma extractivism in the Amazon. 2 State of Wonder describes the journey of Marina Singh, a former trainee doctor and now medical researcher, from Minnesota to Manaus, and then up the Rio Negro into the Brazilian Amazon. She is on a dual mission for her employer, the pharmaceutical company Vogel: uncover the details about the death of her colleague and friend, Anders Eckman, while also locating Dr. Annick Swenson, the task that initially sent Anders to the Amazon.…”