Η παρουσία του γκροτέσκου στη διηγηματογραφία του Αλέξανδρου Παπαδιαμάντη και του Charles Dickens

Abstract

The present paper attempts a comparative study of the grotesque elements in the short stories of Alexandros Papadiamantis and Charles Dickens. The aesthetic genre of the grotesque is based on deliberate disproportion between comic style and horrifying subjectmatter or vice versa, resulting in incongruity and disharmony both in work and response. From the consideration of the various sources of the grotesque in their work, it appears that both writers depict only mild forms of the grotesque due to personal (religious background of Papadiamantis) or social (Victorian and puritanistic conventions) reasons. They employ a form of the playful grotesque giving their literary characters grotesque features; the visual effect of physiognomy as an index of character and morality is an important constituent in the grotesqueness of their work. Sinister grotesque and macabre elements, although incompatible with the prevailing religious and poetical aspects in Papadiamantis' short-strories, are also present in their work. However, the grotesque elements in papadiamantian prose are distinctly limited compared to Dickens, who intentionally employed grotesque analogies to excite disapproval of social conditions. For Papadiamantis the presence of the grotesque, although sparse, is a way to bring out by dramatic exaggeration the everyday alternation between the comic and the tragic, a way to respond during a crucial period of transition on the questions of cultural orientation and personal or social predicaments that made his fellowmen suffer. His uniqueness lies in the brilliant fusion of a wide range of contrasting components, adapted to his personal artistic style and thus exhibiting literary characteristics of world-wide successful writers, at the same time creating a work felicitously described as a «cultural mustery».