Analysis of The Grotesque

In the "Introduction" to "The Politics and Poetics of transgression," Peter Stallybrass and Allon White examine the importance of the "low-Other", a figure often represented as the grotesque body. Stallybrass and White argue that an analysis of the low -Other or grotesque can show us how what is "socially peripheral is so frequently symbolically central" (5). In other words, what is socially "other", outside, or marginal to a social system is symbolically central to that same social system. Paper Masters can compose a custom written research paper on Analysis of the Grotesque that follows your guidelines.

Analysis of the Grotesque Characters

Focusing on one character of your choice from either "The Hand Puppet": Tippi, Lorraine Lake, or "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe": Miss Amelia, Marvin Macy, Cousin Lymon, or "The Town", develop a specific argument about the meaning and significance of this character's representation as the "low Other" and the grotesque body.

You will need to suggest how this socially peripheral character is symbolically central to the social order. To do this is specific about how the character is "other" and how the social order is defined. Finally you should discuss how the social order you have defined is restored by the presence or actions of the low-Other and /or how that order is damaged or changed.

You should also work with one or more of the theoretical concepts: the uncanny, ambivalence, anxiety, transgression, the return of the repressed. If you choose to work with these concepts take the time to define the term and the specific ways it operates in the literary text. You will use quoted material from the "Introduction" to "the Politics and poetics of Transgression" by Peter Stallybrass and Allon White to support your ideas.

Discussing Analysis of the Grotesque

Others areas to discuss: Significance: What part does the low play in helping us understand what the text is about? What does it contribute to the meaning?

• How does the "low" interrupt the "normal?"
• Show us the instability of "character?"
• Force us to see something we don't want to, or something we have repressed? (For example Tippi and the hand puppet, the mother has something she has been repressing that makes her so fearful of the hand puppet).
  

Again you may choose which Gothic story, and character you feel most comfortable working with.