Over the course of several centuries, grotesque images have played a vital role in the arts, literature, and cultures around the world. Attempting to attach a single definition to the word grotesque has proven to be a challenge for historians and literary scholars as its definition has changed over time, but the role it plays in each of these topics is essentially the same. The Grotesque serves as a means of departing from conventional beauty standards, of distorting and exaggerating, and combining the familiar with the unknown, much like the Uncanny. For this reason, Gothic literature often incorporates grotesque imagery to further emphasize themes of chaos, madness, and other dark aspects of the human condition. This essay will examine the concept of grotesque imagery and the role it plays in challenging conventional notions of the body in Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Café. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayWhen the word grotesque is first introduced, most people would think of its adjectival form: "very strange or ugly in a way that is not normal" or natural." (The Master's Review). Although whether these are indeed common grotesque elements, they do not necessarily constitute the entire meaning of the word. As the word itself has evolved and changed meaning over the years, previous iterations have been used in a way that blurred the line between real and unreal. (The Masters Review) More recently, the Grotesque is used in literature to focus on the physical appearance of the human body. However, the grotesque is both an artistic and literary term that implies a combination of the real and the unreal, the human and the non-human. and horror and comedy. An example of grotesque literature that blends horror with comedy is in Nikolai Gogol's story "The Nose", which is about a man named Ivan who wakes up one day to find that his nose has run off. and now he is walking around Russia dressed as a police officer. Nose harasses him when he accuses him of running away from him, and then almost arrests him (LetterPile). Clearly this plot is disturbing, but it's also so far-fetched that it's comical. The grotesque tends to defy clear definitions and boundaries that it occupies the middle ground between life and death and is inherently ambiguous. In literature as well as art, the grotesque is defined by what it does to boundaries: transgress them, merge them, or destabilize them (Connelly 4). The supposed universals of classical beauty often imply symmetry, aesthetically pleasing subjects, and perfect body proportions. Grotesque images, however, are exactly the opposite of this. To quote Victor Hugo, “ideal beauty has only one standard while the variations and combinations possible for the grotesque are unlimited.” (Connelly 4). Visual images often depict the grotesque as monstrous, deformed, and ugly. In her academic essay titled “The Grotesque Body: Fleshing Out the Subject,” Sara Cohen Shabot defines grotesque art as “art whose form and subject matter appear to be part, albeit contradictory, of the natural, social, or personal world.” of which we are part. His images very often embody distortions in such a way that they present us as strange and disordered” (Shabot 58). An example of this can be seen in the painting The Skat Players (pictured below), by Otto Dix. In the painting, Dix chooses to depict his subjects as terrifying hybrids of machine and man to make a statement about the technological revolution that was occurring in the time he painted it, the 1920s.Like Dix, Robert Louis Stevenson also used grotesque imagery to develop the character, Hyde, in his novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to make a political statement. He wrote this novel in London in the late 19th century, where it was normal for people to present themselves in a very respectable way and things like the expression of sexuality (especially homosexuality) were considered taboo. In the novel, Stevenson describes Hyde as "pale and very small, gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, had an unpleasant smile... but not all these together could explain the disgust, disgust and fear hitherto unknown with which Mr. Utterson looked at him." (Stevenson 16) Describing him as this deformed, primitive creature, Stevenson uses Hyde as an allegory for the repressed desires and evil tendencies that are an inevitable part of human nature The fear and hatred generated towards Hyde by other characters of the novel symbolize the attitudes of the elite members of London society and their tendency to heavily veil the transgressions and dark aspects of their personalities during this period. In Ballad of the Sad Café, Cousin Lymon is also described as extremely deformed and dwarf-like. McCullers writes: “…the man was a hunchback. He was just over five feet tall and wore a tattered, dusty coat that reached only to his knees. His little bandy legs seemed too thin to bear the weight of his large, deformed chest and the hump that rested on his shoulders (McCullers This description of Cousin Lymon is different from that of Hyde, in the sense that Lymon is not as menacing, but is described in a similar way). extravagant to the point of being slightly comical. Despite his seemingly non-threatening manner, the reader will find out later. that Cousin Lymon is actually highly manipulative and untrustworthy. Lymon's initial grotesque description serves to create a sense of unease and mystery about him, which can be seen as a foreshadowing of his flawed character which is revealed later in the story when he betrays Miss Amelia during her argument with Marvin Macy. Given these two examples of grotesque body images, one can see how effective it is to capture the reader's attention when such bold and unconventional body images are presented. Some other reasons behind the use of grotesque imagery stem from cultural developments such as the introduction of photography, mass media, science fiction, and weapons of mass destruction (Connelly 1). In his academic journal article titled “The Grotesque: First Principles,” Geoffrey Harpham describes ever-evolving grotesque ideals saying, “As our perceptions of the physical world change, just as the world itself is changed by technology, by pollution, by wars and urbanization. - some things that appeared as distortions are now seen as commonplace... Each age redefines the grotesque in terms of that which threatens its sense of essential humanity. (Harfam 463). For example, Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde was composed during a time when society was beginning to develop social sciences such as psychology, where multiple personality disorder and other dissociative disorders were beginning to be diagnosed for the first time in history. In today's society, writers might draw inspiration for the grotesque from things like space exploration, climate catastrophe, or the rapid development of artificial intelligence. In addition to using grotesque images that reflect a society's current fears or scientific advances, authors often use them as a tool to denounce certain cultural ideals. Being a woman.