“Grotesque” in Mourners of Bayal

This paper investigates a theoretical category in art and literature called Grotesque. As a literary and artistic style, Grotesque is in a fundamental contrast with the conventional concept of beauty and goodness; perhaps its beauty is in its uglinesss, its charmin its disgustingness or even it might be that its artistic literacy is in its feature of being imbalanced and daunting. During the last centuries, little attention has been paid to this subject. However, it has been widely dealt with in the twentieth century by theorists such as Mikhail Bakhtin.
In addition to examining critics’ view on the subject of Grotesque, this article reviews the definitions and theoretical explanations around the grotesque and deals with the two main approaches which have been proposd for this artistic literary category. Next, the elements, goals, and functions of grotesque, especially the ones in Philip Thompson's view, have been examined. Finally, elements of grotesque in Mourners of Bayal by GholamHosseinSa'edi, a contemporary writer, will be studied.