Clairvius Narcisse was the name of a Haitian man who on April 30, 1962, showed up at a hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti, with an undiagnosable illness and after 3 days was pronounced dead. St. Hilaire depicts Narcisse’s lifeless body, held up by a man smoking a cigarette and wearing a top hat and black suit: the sartorial signs of Baron Samedi, Vodou spirit (loa) of the dead. Narcisse’s body is not held in a careful manner, and the visual notes of gloves, boots and a shovel instill a sense of moral ambiguity. What at first appeared to be an act of benevolence: a man supporting another, becomes surreptitious upon closer inspection.
Eighteen years after Clairvius Narcisse was declared dead, a man appeared in his hometown of l’Èstere claiming to be him. He provided Narcisse’s family with intimate information and told them he had been given a magic false death, as punishment for refusing to share part of his inheritance with his brother.
Narcisse said he had been conscious but paralyzed during his burial, after being drugged by a toxin made from puffer fish. Once Narcisse was robbed of his faculties, he was resurrected by a Vodou priest and forced into slave labor, the role ascribed to those considered zombies (zonbi), which in Haiti is defined as a body without character or will.
The myth of zombies is one of the most prominent Vodou concepts to enter Western discourse and has subsequently been used as a way to caricature and demonize Vodun. Zombies are a powerful vehicle for St. Hilaire to explore the relationship between her Haitian descent and American surroundings, a means through which to consider her position between these two worlds.