Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Línguas e Culturas 2005 Maria Sofia Pimentel Leituras Dialógicas do Grotesco: Biscaia Textos Contemporâneos do Excesso Dialogical Readings of the Grotesque: Texts of Contemporary Excess Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Línguas e Culturas 2005 Maria Sofia Pimentel Leituras Dialógicas do Grotesco: Biscaia Textos Contemporâneos do Excesso Dialogical Readings of the Grotesque: Texts of Contemporary Excess Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Literatura, realizada sob a orientação científica do Doutor Kenneth David Callahan, Professor Associado do Departamento de Línguas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro e da Doutora Maria Aline Salgueiro Seabra Ferreira, Professora Associada do Departamento de Línguas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro o júri Presidente Prof. Doutor José Carlos da Silva Neves Professor Catedrático da Universidade de Aveiro Prof. Doutor Mário Carlos Fernandes Avelar Professor Associado com Agregação da Universidade Aberta Profª. Doutora Ana Gabriela Vilela Pereira de Macedo Professora Associada da Universidade do Minho Prof. Doutor Anthony David Barker Professor Associado da Universidade de Aveiro Profª. Doutora Maria Aline Salgueiro Seabra Ferreira Professora Associada da Universidade de Aveiro Prof. Doutor Kenneth David Callahan Professor Associado da Universidade de Aveiro Profª. Doutora Adriana Alves de Paula Martins Professora Auxiliar da Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Viseu Agradecimentos A elaboração desta dissertação foi possível graças ao apoio financeiro da FCT e do FSE, no âmbito do III Quadro Comunitário. As condições de acolhimento proporcionadas pelo Departamento de Línguas e Culturas e pelo Centro de Línguas e Culturas foram essenciais para o cumprimento atempado do projecto. Aos meus orientadores, cujo conselho sábio, entusiasmo e confiança inabaláveis no meu trabalho me inspiraram e estimularam, gostaria de manifestar o meu profundo agradecimento. Aos docentes do DLC, colegas doutorandos, amigos e familiares que nestes anos me encorajaram quero expressar a importância dos seus gestos de solidária estima, e agradecer em particular àqueles cujo auxílio efectivo na resolução dos inúmeros problemas foi determinante. Resumo Mikhail Bakhtin tornou-se para os recentes estudos linguísticos e literários uma referência fundamental e o seu aclamado Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics representa actualmente uma obra obrigatória do dialogismo e da polifonia. Além de Das Groteske: Seine Gestaltung in Malerei und Dichtung de Wolfgang Kayser, deve considerar-se Rabelais and His World como uma das análises mais significativas na área do grotesco. O presente estudo baseia-se fundamentalmente numa fundamentação bakhtiniana do grotesco que é complementada por perspectivas que se tornam particularmente pertinentes nas áreas literárias em questão, o pós-colonialismo e a literatura feminista / feminina. Entre outros contributos de índole ensaística, encontramos os estudos de Mary Russo, Martha Reineke, Julia Kristeva e René Girard. Lendo dialogicamente as marcas dos textos de obras seleccionadas de Githa Hariharan, Salman Rushdie, Robert Coover, Ben Okri e Angela Carter demonstra-se que o grotesco é não só uma filosofia e estética abundante na literatura pós-colonial e feminista mas também um instrumento político e uma força interventiva na mudança de mentalidades. Abstract Mikhail Bakhtin is unquestionably a fundamental reference in contemporary linguistic and literary studies where his Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics has become a landmark in the specific fields of dialogism and polyphony. Critics regard Rabelais and His World as a ground-breaking study of the grotesque, only equated with Wolfgang Kayser’s Das Groteske: Seine Gestaltung in Malerei und Dichtung. My analysis is based mainly on a Bakhtinian view of the grotesque which is complemented by perspectives more directly related with the fields in question, postcolonialism and women’s literature. Among these are counted Mary Russo, Martha Reineke, Julia Kristeva and René Girard’s studies. The dialogical readings of the selected texts by Githa Hariharan, Salman Rushdie, Robert Coover, Ben Okri and Angela Carter reveal that the grotesque is not only a philosophy and aesthetic abounding in postcolonial and women’s literature but also that it is a political tool and a powerful intervention force in the ongoing process of changing mentalities. Dialogical Readings of the Grotesque: Texts of Contemporary Excess Jury Acknowledgements Resumo Abstract Contents Part I Cultural and literary criticism: locations of the grotesque 1. Introduction 1 2. Dialogism and the poetics of carnival 31 3. The iconography of the Bakhtinian grotesque and its application in the postmodern context 57 4. Historical overview of grotesque art, literature, and criticism 67 Part II Dialogical readings: practices of the grotesque 1. Sacrificing the animal-woman 171 1.1. Woman as spectacle and martyr in When Dreams Travel 174 1.1.1. Female grotesqueness: a dialogue with Mary Russo 174 1.1.2. Freakishness and the mutilated female body 178 1.1.3. Female sacrifice, the discourse of resistance and Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection 202 1.1.4. Myth and the politics of sacrifice 212 1.2. Feline metamorphosis in Shame 224 1.2.1. René Girard’s theory of the sacrificial victim 225 1.2.2. Martha Reineke’s gender-informed perspective of the theory of the sacrificial victim: the socio-historical treatment of the witch reconsidered 238 1.2.3. Bakhtin and Girard meet and divide: the issue of violence 240 1.2.4. The carnivalesque-grotesque: Sufiya Zinobia and Omar Shakil 249 1.3. The grotesque in a religious context and in an authoritarian regime: Del amor y otros demonios and Shame 284 1.3.1. Sierva María: dog-woman and witch 284 1.3.2. The downfall of two tyrants and the triumph of three mothers 305 2. Spiritual realism or African magical realism: hunger and the supernatural in The Famished Road 357 2.1. The debate over the concept of African magical realism and the accusation of cultural imperialism 358 2.2. Rebirth and nationhood: Boschian and Brueghelian imagery 370 2.3. A body well-fed: Madame Koto’s grotesqueness, the case of unreliable embodiment of wickedness and of the witch stereotype 382 2.4. The grotesque ignored: the misogynist approach to the blind old man’s character 410 3. In the heart of darkness: travels through a grotesque puppet land in Pinocchio in Venice 419 3.1. Classicism versus the grotesque: academia versus carnival and fairy tale versus reality 420 3.2. Instances of sacred parody: Pinocchio as a Christ-like figure, the Madonna of the Organs as demythologisation of the Virgin Mary and the engulfing Mamma 441 3.3. The Italian tradition: elements from the commedia dell’arte 487 4. A fairyland of grotesquery: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories 501 4.1. Introduction 502 4.2. “The Bloody Chamber” Considering pornography: decadence, orientalism and the gothic 514 4.3. “The Courtship of Mr Lyon” The structure of gender power relations updated but mimicked 540 4.4. “The Tiger’s bride” The carnivalesque version of masculinity and the fully animalised sexed woman 548 4.5. “Puss-in-Boots” The story of Bluebeard in commedia dell’arte fashion 562 4.6. “The Erl-King” Romantic aesthetics and the murderous conception of the denial of feminine self-sacrifice 568 4.7. “The Snow Child” Ultimate images: the phallocratic father, the submissive daughter and ineffectual rebirth 580 4.8. “The Lady of the House of Love” Unwilling monologic feminine authority 587 4.9. “The Werewolf” An all-women’s tale and the same patriarchal story of sacrifice: witches, werewolves and the devil 601 4.10. “The Company of Wolves” Self-sacrifice suggested and the salvation of the male through female intervention 614 4.11. “Wolf-Alice” Free in a deadlock: the wolf-girl as alternative of a consciousness beyond Lacanianism through abjection and the grotesque 636 4.12. Conclusion 666 5. Conclusion 673 6. List of plates 703 7. Bibliography 709 8. Index 747 Introduction 1 _________________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction 2 Dialogical Readings of the Grotesque – Part I _________________________________________________________________________ “And if you want to know what impresses me it is to see how you contrive to give over humanity into the clutches of the Impossible and yet manage to keep it down (or up) to its humanity, to its flesh, blood, sorrow, folly. That is the achievement!” Joseph Conrad, letter to H. G. Wells on The Invisible Man. Intr. to The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance. Italics in the text he Hollow Man came out in 2000 inserted in the revival of monster-based films which has been taking place in recent years. Its principal filmic intertext is the classical The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933) in relation to which it does not, however, try to constitute a remake. The most singular feature of Paul Verhoeven’s film resides in its manifest investment in visual horror, which constitutes a paradox considering its simultaneous investment in the resonances of invisibility. Visual horror is firstly presented in the form of animal experiments, put forward specifically through an almost human gorilla. The formula to make oneself invisible is, apparently, not too difficult to attain, unlike the reverse process which had led to the excruciating and visceral deaths of numerous guinea pigs. The underground laboratory is full of disconcerting