3. THE ANALISYS OF GROTESQUE CHARACTERISTICS IN WISE BLOOD
In this chapter, I will explain the characteristics of grotesque in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood. The grotesque characteristics that are discussed are
monster, violence, absurd, mystery, comic, symbol, and irony. I find the characteristics of grotesque from the quotation of actions, dialogues, and speech
of the characters. The usage of numbers for every quotation is to make easier for the readers to know the quotations I mean in the explanations.
3.1 Monster
The grotesque is not a phenomenon solely of the twentieth century, nor even of modern civilization. It exists as an artistic mode in the west at least as far
back as the early Christian period of Roman culture, where there evolved a style of combining human, animal, and vegetable elements, intricately interwoven in
painting. Grotesque refers to the monstrous details in gothic design. Monstrous quality of the grotesque constituted but the fusion of different realms as well as by
a definite lack of proportion and organization. As Michael Foucault says that the monster is essentially a mixture of two
realms, one O’Connor character, Enoch Emery, could be called the monster because he is the mixture of animal form and human. He puts on a gorilla costume
that he steals from an actor who plays Gonga, a giant gorilla being featured at the movie theaters. Enoch changes himself into the giant gorilla. O’Connor ends the
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story of Enoch after he becomes Gonga the gorilla. Enoch he will never be himself anymore for he has buried his clothes 1.
1 Burying his clothes was not a symbol to him of burying his former self; he only knew he wouldn’t need them any more. He
discovered while he did this that he still had his shoes on, and when he finished, he removed them and threw them from him.
Fitzgerald, 1988: 111
According to Ruby Cohn 1922- , the grotesque has been identified by its assimilation of animal and human worlds, of real and dream worlds Corrigan,
1981: 295. Enoch is the best example of describing the assimilation. He wants to escape his dreary life style but in his case instead of the more usual longing to be
like a film star or pop singer, he sees his way to fame by dressing ‘up’ as a gorilla. Enoch, who considers that he has “wise blood” just like his father, believes that
his “wise blood” orders him to transform. Wearing the “gorilla suit,” he becomes a grotesque figure literally and vanishes with citizens of Taulkinham. Enoch
mixes himself into of two forms: a human and an inanimate thing. Enoch’s monstrous quality is emphasized by the changing of the usage of the pronoun.
Enoch is not called with “he” anymore, but Enoch is called with “it” after Enoch changes himself into the gorilla he admires.
2 In the certain light, one of his lean white legs could be seen to disappear and then the other: a black heavier shaggier figure
replaced his. For an instant, it had two heads, one light and one dark, but after a second, it pulled the dark back head over the other
and corrected this. It buried itself with certain hidden fastening and what appeared to be minor adjustments of its hide…for a time after
this, it stood very still and didn’t do anything. Fitzgerald, 1988: 111-112
Enoch’s believes that his “wise blood” always tells him what to do. Enoch does things based on his instinct because most his actions are done without being
thought. Some sociologists argue that humans have no instincts, defining them as
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a complex pattern of behavior present in every specimen of a particular species, that is innate, and that cannot be overridden. Drives such as sex and hunger
cannot be considered instincts, as they can be overridden. O’Connor writes Enoch as a character who does things based on his instinct, waits for something he does
not know to happen is to emphasize Enoch monstrous characteristic. In 3, even O’Connor compares Enoch to a bird, an animal with instinct.
3 Sometimes he didn’t think, he only wondered; then before long he would find himself doing this or that, like a bird finds itself
building a nest when it hasn’t actually been planning to. Fitzgerald, 1988: 73
4 That morning Enoch Emery knew when he woke up that today the person he could show it to was going to come. He knew by his
blood. He has wise blood like his daddy. Fitzgerald, 1988: 44
5 He stood there a minute as if he were looking for somebody and then he sat down stiffly on the grass. He had on a blue suit and
a black hat. He sat with his knees drawn up “Well, I’ll be dog,” Enoch said, “Well, I’ll be dog.”
MacAndrew writes that the monster tends to be demonic and pictures them as a directionless grossly deformed individual. Enoch is called having the
monstrous quality for he does evil and gross things. Enoch hides in the bushes while spying on women at the local swimming and he does it everyday 6. Stirred
by his Wise Blood, Enoch steals mummy 7, a shrunken man from museum and gives it to Hazel Motes because he thinks it is the new “jesus”. Enoch also steals a
gorilla costume, dons it and then buries his old clothes that he comes into his own world. At first it expresses happiness, but then it scares people away as if he has
become an animal 8. Clearly the monstrous figure is portrayed here. 6 Every day when he got off duty, he went into the park, and
every day when he went in, he did the same things. He went first to the swimming pool. He was afraid of the water but he liked to
sit up on the bank above it if there were any women in the pool,
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and watch them. There was one woman who came every Monday who wore a bathing suit that was split on each hip. At first he
thought she didn’t know it, and instead of watching openly on the bank, he had crawled into some bushes, snickering to himself, and
had watched from there. Fitzgerald, 1988: 44
7 When he’d got back to his room, he had taken the new jesus out the sack and, hardly daring to look at him, had laid him in the
gilted cabinet; then he had sat down on the edge of his bed to wait. Fitzgerald, 1988: 98
8 A man and woman sitting close together on a rock just off the highway were looking across a open stretch of valley at a view of
the city in the distance and they didn’t see the shaggy figure approaching. She, as soon as she turned her eyes, fled screaming
down the highway. The gorilla stood as though surprises and presently its arm fell to its side. Fitzgerald, 1988: 112
3.2 Violence
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