Critics often point out the incongruity between Flannery O?Connor?s grotesque humor and her self-proclaimed Christian purpose. This paper uses Mikhail Bakhtin?s conception of the carnivalesque to argue that O?Connor?s use of grotesque humor is essential to her purpose. Both O?Connor and Bakhtin distrust all-encompassing ideologies that claim to authoritatively categorize and explain existence. In the carnivalesque laughter created by the grotesque realism of Rabelais, Bakhtin finds a way to undermine worldviews that claim ultimate authority. Similarly, O?Connor uses concrete and grotesque, but humorous images to displace her readers? expectations and undermine their natural desire to explain existence at the expense of mystery. By opening her readers up to mystery, O?Connor prepares them to see the world, and the people in it, as they truly are: complex, flawed, and beautiful.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NCSU/oai:NCSU:etd-04212006-002139 |
| Date | 28 April 2006 |
| Creators | Cook, Jonathan Neil |
| Contributors | Dr. Barbara Bennett |
| Publisher | NCSU |
| Source Sets | North Carolina State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04212006-002139/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to NC State University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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