The Grotesque

People usually write stories that relate to them. They write about things that help show how they think and what they believe in. Flannery O’Connor is known for her novels and short stories. Her work uses grotesque description to describe the characters and the settings. Flannery O’Connor uses grotesque description…

at this time, not only were citizens filled with hatred towards Jews, but the government had very strong anti-semitic roots which led to concentration camps and death camps throughout the country. In Sara Nomberg’s Auschwitz: True Stories From a Grotesque Land, she tells her story of her experiences within Auschwitz. Likewise, Primo Levi tells his story of his encounters during his time in Auschwitz in “The Gray Zone”. In her essay, “The Concentration Camps”, Hannah Arendt writes that “the next…

Carnival is the birth of a whole new life; it is a time of joy and unity. Spectacular, outrageous events are planned throughout the span of the celebration. “Carnival festivities and the comic spectacles and ritual connected with them had an important place in the life of the medieval man (Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais)”. These over the top events won over the people’s hearts in the Renaissance and in the Middle Ages. During Carnival festivities, rules were thrown out the window and laugher was the…

Each house in Charles Dickens’ novel Great Expectations is made to be like the character that lives within it, to emphasize the personalities and characteristics of each person. When Pip first meets Miss Havisham, he thinks of her as weak and grotesque just like her house. He believes that she is just “a skeleton in ashes of a rich dress” (56); when he tours Satis House he is confronted by a house covered in “a great many iron bars” (53) and on the inside it’s filled with “ominous passages” (55)…

The Raven and The Fall of The House of Usher were written by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe uses a gothic style in both stories. Gloomy, dark, and dull are some of the words that can describe the setting. The Raven takes place on a cold December day at midnight, The Fall of the House of Usher takes place in autumn. Some say both are dreary. A nameless narrator was invited to see his ‘sick’ friend. Usher tells the narrator it’s the house making him sick. Sometime during his stay, Madeline suddenly dies of…

falling leaves drop lightly on his bier. In the Australian forests no leaves fall. The savage winds shout among the rock clefts. From the melancholy gums strips of white bark hang and rustle. The very animal life of these frowning hills is either grotesque or ghostly. Great grey kangaroos hop noiselessly over the coarse grass. Flights of white cockatoos stream out, shrieking like evil souls. The sun suddenly sinks, and the mopokes burst out into horrible peals of semi-human laughter. The natives…

The “Masque of the Red Death” is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842. It is a haunting tale of people who tried and failed to escape death. This story was given life in a video published on Vimeo. However, the video was altered and changed from the original version. These changes somewhat changed the meaning and effect of the story on its audience. The effect was less haunting and the video lacked Poe’s single effect that all of his works contained. The video lacked crucial features…

Mirroring in “The Fall of the House of Usher” In the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe, the ambiguous narrator confines himself to helping an old friend which leads to the despise of both men. Roderick Usher, who is mentally sick, requests the narrator to stay with him in his sinister looking mansion with Roderick’s sister Madeline. Concurrently the house Roderick is living in is falling apart like Roderick’s health and family. Roderick himself seems parallel in…

Tell Tale Heart, the insane story of a self assured sane man. This short story was published during 1843 by the eccentric author Edgar Allan Poe. In this short story, the frantic narrator diligently tries to convince the reader that he is a sane man, while providing contradicting details for his quest to murder an innocent old man. His reasons behind it? Simply because he is agitated by the old man’s eye and finds it distasteful. In this short story “The Tell Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe depicts…

Dawson Love Mrs. Cox English 3 11 November 2017 Gothic Elements Essay Gothic literature contains elements that can be disturbing to readers. It is not uncommon to find stories that contain violence, death, pain, monsters, or curses. The themes of Grotesqueness and Mystery propel the short stories: “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, and “The Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga into what is known as gothic literature. The recurring theme…