begiiner
02-18-2008, 08:39 PM
greetings
I’m trying to figure out what word grotesque stands for in literature. I found several different definitions:
1)
*One definition says characters are considered grotesque “ if they induce both empathy and disgust. (A character who inspires disgust alone is simply a villain or a monster.) Obvious examples would include the physically deformed and the mentally deficient”
By “mentally deficient” I assume the above definition refers to some form of mental retardation or severe ( meaning unusual ) mental illness?
Else wouldn’t characters like Tony Soprano from the Sopranos and the character Pacino played in Godfather also be considered grotesque since one can find some sympathy for those characters but they also “disgust” you at the same time?
* Other definitions say grotesque is anything bizarre or fantastic in their appearance. So any story with a dragon in it would be considered grotesque?
*And finally, my book claims grotesque is mixture of unusual, scary and funny at the same time ( don’t know an English phrase for it ), deformed, ironic images , that enable the author to noticeably change the image of reality
In other words, my book’s definition only mentions physical characteristics when defying grotesque, while first definition in this post says empathy and disgust must both exists.
So which is it? I’d like to be able to figure out whether certain character is considered grotesque or not, but the above definitions don’t help me much ( unless it is a very obvious character figure like Frankenstein )
2) What prompted this question in the first case was a short story The Overcoat, by Gogol, where the main character dies ( due to having his coat stolen and thus getting sick ) near the end of the novel dies and then hunts the streets as ghost stealing coats.
Now that novel is considered to be grotesque, but what makes it that? Just the fact that there is ghost involved for which we also feel empathy for?
thank you
I’m trying to figure out what word grotesque stands for in literature. I found several different definitions:
1)
*One definition says characters are considered grotesque “ if they induce both empathy and disgust. (A character who inspires disgust alone is simply a villain or a monster.) Obvious examples would include the physically deformed and the mentally deficient”
By “mentally deficient” I assume the above definition refers to some form of mental retardation or severe ( meaning unusual ) mental illness?
Else wouldn’t characters like Tony Soprano from the Sopranos and the character Pacino played in Godfather also be considered grotesque since one can find some sympathy for those characters but they also “disgust” you at the same time?
* Other definitions say grotesque is anything bizarre or fantastic in their appearance. So any story with a dragon in it would be considered grotesque?
*And finally, my book claims grotesque is mixture of unusual, scary and funny at the same time ( don’t know an English phrase for it ), deformed, ironic images , that enable the author to noticeably change the image of reality
In other words, my book’s definition only mentions physical characteristics when defying grotesque, while first definition in this post says empathy and disgust must both exists.
So which is it? I’d like to be able to figure out whether certain character is considered grotesque or not, but the above definitions don’t help me much ( unless it is a very obvious character figure like Frankenstein )
2) What prompted this question in the first case was a short story The Overcoat, by Gogol, where the main character dies ( due to having his coat stolen and thus getting sick ) near the end of the novel dies and then hunts the streets as ghost stealing coats.
Now that novel is considered to be grotesque, but what makes it that? Just the fact that there is ghost involved for which we also feel empathy for?
thank you