Grotesque Characters in Fiction Generally

Grotesque Characters

Characters in fiction generally reflect aspects of the human condition and so are drawn as realistically as possible. Even then, some characters can be characterized as grotesque because of their behavior or some unusual feature that sets them apart. Grotesque characters can serve several different purposes and can differentiate writers and their works more completely, as can be seen with reference to such characters in works such as Eudora Welty's "Petrified Man," Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People," and William Faulkner's "Barn Burning."

As it happens, the characters in all three stories can be seen as conveying local color to the reader and as representing a partial view of a segment of the country, and in all three cases, that part of the country is the South. This does not mean that grotesque characters are associated only with the South, for they are not. Such characters serve to illustrate a particular vision of the South in these three stories, though, and also suggest a certain heightened treatment of character and narrative in order to convey a theme.

Good Country People" is a story infused with the tension between body and mind, the physical and the spiritual. Flannery O'Connor presents this tension in the context of an almost allegorical structure. As with many of her stories, "Good Country People" takes place in a world that is cruel, where human beings inflict damage on one another almost as a matter of course. The world O'Connor creates in her stories is one where the conflict between mind and body is often bloody and may border on the grotesque, and in these stories the plot and theme unfolds in a world with mythological power and significance. The theme of abandonment is strong in "Good Country People" and reinforces the idea that the mind actually separates us from the world around us so that no matter what connections we might make with that world, ultimately we are alone.

In "Good Country People" it is Hulga who is abandoned as the Bible salesman runs off with her wooden leg. The tone of the abandonment is different in each of her stories because of where O'Connor places her emphasis and where she places the reader in terms of the consciousness of the characters. Hulga is the central consciousness in "Good Country People," and she is also trying to seduce the salesman, thinking him an innocent, and is then hoist by her own petard because he is not innocent at all.

O'Connor uses a comic tone to subvert certain verities in the course of this story. Both Hulga and Pointer have perverted their sense of integrity in pursuit of false gods. Mrs. Freeman sets the tone of certainty that is then perverted in the interaction between Hulga and Pointer. For O'Connor, it would seem that the act of selling Bibles is itself a sinful act, at least as carried forth by men like Pointer. They travel around and break every commandment while they make their living from those who believe in the book they sell. In the last part of the story, Hulga and Pointer meet and interact, leading to the final perverse act as Pointer runs off with Hulga's wooden leg. The religion O'connor portrays is distorted by some who promote it, with the bible salesman representing the perversion of the underlying meaning of religion.

Hulga is the central figure, a woman who changed her name from Joy, suggesting that she has eliminated joy from her life in every way. The bible salesman is the young man who arrives to intrigue the daughter, while the mother seems him as a foolish young man. Both mother and daughter are wrong, for he is a young man with a mission, traveling to find girls like Hulga, girls with an affliction, so he can steal what they have and leave them behind. He does this because he believes in nothing and wants others to see that there is nom God and no reward, though the bibles he sells would have it otherwise. The character of the young man changed in that the truth about it is revealed, not in that he changes his attitude or becomes a different sort of person in reality. Hulga is a dour young woman who studied philosophy and who believes in nothing, but she is seduced into believing in the young man for a time, then is let down even harder than before by what he does.

In William Faulkner's "Barn Burning," one character who can be considered central and who changes during the course of the story is the boy whose father burns barns and expresses his anger toward the world in that act. The father should also be seen as a major character, primarily as a motivating force for his son, but he does not change in the course of the story and remains unrepentant, though certain facts about him are revealed by the end of the story suggesting that he has been this sort of man for a long time. The boy has a conflicted relationship with his father, on the one hand spending most of his time with him and doing what his father tells him, and on the other suffering because he does not like what his father does yet has to lie for him when asked in court. He also resents being hit by his father yet can do nothing about it. He knows he should have loyalty for his farther, but he also feels loyalty to what is right and wants to avoid what is wrong. The father has a bad relationship with virtually everyone, viewing them with suspicion and taking his anger out on them by burning barns, behavior that is grotesque in itself, while the anger the man manifests at all times makes him grotesque.. The boy is torn by his desire to do the right thing and the fact that his father makes him do the wrong thing. His motivation is to please his father, but he also has to stay out of his father's way so as not to get hit. In the end, the boy is motivated by his knowledge of right and wrong and so escapes, heading to the De Spains to warn them. The father is a non-conformist who commits crimes of anger, while the son would like to conform and gain the respect of the community that now casts his father out and sees the boy in part as an adjunct to his father.

Snopes is a small man in terms of his personality and his lack of ethics. The lessons he teaches his children are hard lessons, and in reality he is trying to shape them into newer versions of himself, seeing the rest of the world as the enemy. Snopes is a true racist, expressing his hatred toward blacks because that is the only social group to which he can feel immediately superior. The boy does try to be the father and seeks the father's approval, though he rarely gets it. The reader sees the story through the eyes of the child, and in this way the reader experiences not only what the boy observes but the sense that the boy is always trying to appease his father, a man capable of turning violent toward the boy at any moment.

Snopes also tries to use the law to serve his own ends when he sues Major de Spain for something he himself did. The boy expresses his anger in a reasonable way, while his father appears outwardly calm as he sends the boy for a can of oil so he can burn another barn. The boy has a crisis of conscience as his father sets out to burn the major's barn, and he becomes the representative of his mother and aunt, who says that if he does not go, she will, as he runs to tell the Major what is happening. The boy will suffer greatly for what he has done because it leads to his father's death, but at the same time there is a sense of relief that the petty terror of the father is over. The boy changes in the course of the story, changes from a shadow of his father, however much he was a reluctant shadow, to an individual in his own right. In this sense, the story tells of the way the boy breaks free from the overbearing nature of the father and becomes an individual capable of expressing his own moral sense.