Removing the Masks of Lady Liberty: The Grotesque in the Literatures of the “Defeated” Americas

When considering the loss of centralized authority and identity found in “Southern” literature and that of conquered and colonized regions of the Americas, the claim can be made that Southern literature is the product of a “defeated” culture, resembling the postcolonial perspective associated with Latin American and Caribbean literature. Revealed by an analytical reading of Southern writer William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” Haitian American writer Edwidge Danticat’s “Between the Pool and the Gardenias,” and Latina writer Ana Castillo’s So Far From God, are contingencies between diverse cultures of the American tradition formed by the authors’ use of grotesque imagery. Similar expressions of social upheaval and loss of folk culture are revealed, demonstrating a significant link between Southern literature and other marginalized literatures of the Americas.

Philip Thomson states that the most consistently distinguished characteristic of the grotesque is “the fundamental element of disharmony, whether this is referred to as conflict, clash, mixture of the heterogeneous, or conflation of disparates” (20). A critical shift in understanding occurs as the reader is faced with an irresolvable conflict and moves from feeling curiosity or pity to disgust or revulsion at the mix of the comic and the terrifying. This is further emphasized through exaggerated elements of abnormality in an otherwise normal world, causing readers to feel revulsion as they face a threat to their social norm. Used frequently by each of the three authors, this essential element of the grotesque is manifested in the literary sentiments of defeated peoples, acting as a representation or response to the loss of cultural identity.

Deborah Cohn describes the progression of Latin American literature and the direct influence of William Faulkner’s depictions of “his South” upon it, stating that Latin American authors relate to Faulkner’s writing because of similar experiences with economic difficulties and national colonial dependency as well as “reconstruction policies which resulted in the South’s perception of itself not just as defeated but as conquered, and of the North as the conquering nation” (150). Her position is supported by the work of Scott G. Williams, who claims that Faulkner speaks to Latin American authors in a familiar voice, helping them to link their international roots and cultivate interrelations with other transnational cultures (6). Similar images of agrarian resistance to modernization link the cultures and illustrate the position of Latin American writers as conquered historically not only by Spain but also the United States, demonstrating “a shared comprehension of America and a shared mode of narrating its history” (Cohn 152). This is accomplished through expressions of the loss of folk tradition to modern practice and the general tensions created by social upheaval, illustrated by literary devices like rejection of temporality, multiple perspectives, and memory, all elements present in grotesque imagery.

Manuel Broncano discusses a similar connection between the use of magical realism by Caribbean authors and the writings of Mississippi’s Lewis Nordan, who uses what Broncano calls the “magical grotesque” (662). Broncano defines this trope as “American grotesque with a clear tendency to the magical and mysterious, as found in the first recordings by the Europeans of the New World as the land of ‘exaggerated plenty.” highlighting “a peculiar kind of realism often produced in the Americas” (2). He quotes Latin American author Gabriel García Márquez, who claims that the Caribbean and Latin American stage consistently use techniques that find their roots in the same postcolonial atmosphere and are deeply indebted to Faulkner’s heritage (2).

Thomson states that in order to qualify as grotesque literature, a text must take place in a non-fantastical world, demonstrating “a presentation of the real world without falsifying it” (18–19). To explain this, he references Arthur Clayborough and his discussion of lapses in time and plot through physically grotesque images and irresolvable forms: “The characteristics of the grotesque style of art and the rejection of ‘the natural conditions of organization—are objects of ridicule and disapproval. The general sense … is therefore that of ‘ridiculous, distorted, unnatural; an absurdity, a distortion of nature” (Thomson 13). Thomson essentially suggests...