A Grotesque Modern Moment

What is the grotesque body, and why did modernists turn to it for inspiration? This chapter discusses the history of the grotesque and its relationship to the body, the historical contexts that lead to the adoption of grotesque traditions in modernism, and the conflicting critical views of what the grotesque and modernism are. Modernist literature and art draws upon both visual and literary traditions of the grotesque, and combines both gothic horror and carnival humour to unsettle straightforward responses to the bodies they present. In doing so, they adapt its imagery to their own contemporary concerns. Their bodies represent the uncertainty of the present, a changing social order and their consequent alienation from it. Finally, this chapter establishes that bodies are useful tools for comprehending the grotesque’s ambivalent effect, and how bodies are conceived of in modernist works. Grotesque bodies make confusion and uncertainty visible by marking them on physical forms. These bodies allow authors, critics and readers to confront material reality, and how reality often fails to obey the socially constructed codes of realism used to understand it.