The unusual and disturbing humor of Felisberto Hernández

Abstract

Felisberto Hernández's narrative constitutes a corpus still little explored by academics and demands an invigorated attention from researchers who update the set of academic works about this peculiar author. In this manuscript, we analyze one of the aspects that integrates and characterizes the narrative form of this atypical Uruguayan writer: the merge between humor and the unusual. By examining texts that compose the three different phases of his writing chronology (with emphasis in the first one), we draw an overview about how Hernández builds a disturbing kind of humour, which castrates the laugh. Our theoretical scoop is based on the work of Rama (2011), Fraga de León (2003), Barrenechea (1976) e Bergson (2004), among others.