Uncanny images

El dolor de los demás (2018) by Miguel Ángel Hernández

Abstract

The objective of this article is to analyze how the images which appear in El dolor de los demás, by Miguel Ángel Hernández, allow us to develop both a narrative and a theoretical discourse on the sinister, understanding the term in the Freudian sense. All the photos, the newspaper clippings, the images of contemporary artistic works present in the novel will gradually become emblematic epitomes from which the protagonist narrator will reflect on the perception of time in relation to a disturbing past. The narrator will also discover the risks of the interpretive loop (or the conflict of the interpretations) in which the one who contemplates those same visual documents ends up immersing himself, especially when a portion of the personal past is configured as a bleeding wound and unhealthy trauma.