In "The Book of Grotesques," the first story of his novel Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson introduces the concept of the "grotesque." This concept gives life to the following stories in the novel and can also be seen in other modernist texts after the publication of Winesburg, Ohio. Anderson specifically traces the birth of the grotesque to a time when the world was pure and a conglomerate of vague thoughts formed beautiful truths: “Man himself created truths, and every truth was a composite of very many vague thoughts. All in the world there were truths and they were all beautiful” (Anderson 12-14). However, people began to embrace these truths and attempted to make them their own. The result was a distortion of these truths: they were transformed into lies, and people themselves became grotesque in trying to appropriate them. “The moment one of the people took one of the truths for himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque, and the truth he embraced became a lie” (Anderson 15-17) .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In developing his idea of ​​the grotesque, Anderson not only provides a key to how to read Winesburg, Ohio, but also articulates a way of portraying characters by reducing them to a single characteristic. Modernist authors who followed Anderson, notably Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner, clung to this notion and created characters who defined themselves with a singular truth. While effective, the implementation of this type of character as one-dimensional and symbolic becomes problematic in their excessive simplification. These characters represent particular aspects of humanity, but humanity is lost due to their lack of complexity. There is a distance between the reader and the reader, because they are not credible. organic characters - just caricatures. In her novel Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf expands Anderson's idea through the character of Peter Walsh. Woolf's approach differs from Anderson's in that some of her characters are grotesque to show the complexity of other characters, such as Clarissa Dalloway. The juxtaposition of Peter Walsh and Clarissa Dalloway positions Peter as an inadequate foil. They are not at all equally represented; Peter's follies and vanities are exaggerated. Instead of sympathizing with Peter, we are disgusted by him. Clarissa is allowed both flaws and triumphs, and her character is constructed as a human being rather than a gross distortion of some human characteristic. To follow Anderson's lead, Peter Walsh "gets" the truths of romantic love and youth. His dripping sentimentality serves as a threat to Clarissa's impenetrability. Because the grotesque character of Peter was created to embody these truths, readers begin to confuse romantic love with his interpretation. This leaves few alternatives to love in Mrs. Dalloway's world. The reader rejects Peter in favor of Clarissa, who has no room for this kind of love: “Peter is his version of that repugnant brute with the blood-red nostrils, of human nature and that sexual and spiritual contamination it requires – that passionate and soul-destroying, penetrating love” (Spilka 332). Pietro vacillates between resenting Clarissa and loving her completely. Clarissa's powerful yet subtle presence is able to bring the proud Peter to his knees, despite his superficial “travel” background; racing; quarrels; adventures; bridge parties; love relationships; work' work, work” (Woolf 46). The maintenance of a private self asideClarissa's is perceived by Peter as "coldness". However, when Woolf offers us such limited options, between Peter's saccharine love and Clarissa's subtle, platonic love, we choose Clarissa every time, in fear of the "penetrating, soul-destroying love" that Peter represents and in favor of Clarissa's “privacy of the soul” (Spilka 332; Woolf 138). Peter's constant self-aggrandizement creates an unflattering portrait of a lovelorn older man who is not yet mature. One of his least flattering moments occurs during his pursuit of the young woman in the black dress. During this chase he considers himself "an adventurer, reckless, he thought, quick, daring, nay (landed as he was last night from India) a romantic buccaneer, careless of all these damned possessions..." (Woolf 57). For the one-dimensional Peter, this woman is a one-dimensional symbol of his youthful fire, in which he revels. After nearly two pages of this illusion, Peter gives up the hunt to enjoy the fantasy. The reader experiences the predictable, frightening deflation: “The girl, clad in silk stockings, feathered, evanescent, but not particularly attractive to him (for she had had her fling) came down” (Woolf 58). This unrealistic and chauvinistic fantasy serves to shock the reader and reveal the capricious nature of Peter's affections. Peter's idealization of youth and his pride in understanding youth suggest a resistance against the natural aging process: "because he understood young people, he liked them" (Wolf 52). His marriage to Daisy exemplifies his desire to maintain youth. His internal monologues are full of judgments. In “Notes on the Grotesque,” ​​James Schevill explains, “the grotesque is often beautiful because it is overtly human and exposed” (Schevill 235). Unlike Woolf's detestable Peter Walsh, William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury portrays a more beautiful kind of grotesque. At the beginning of his section, the tormented Quentin Compson evokes the reader's sympathy in a way that Peter Walsh cannot. That's because we believe Quentin's torment is poignant and justified, and we are drawn to his pain and his eloquence. However, as the section progresses, Quentin's behavior becomes more erratic and less beautiful. His arguments with his father, along with his attempt to lure his sister to death or incest, expose Quentin as a grotesque person, inseparable from his obsessive and distorted perception of morality. In Mrs. Dalloway, Peter's one-dimensionality serves to position Clarissa as a more complex and balanced character. In the case of Quentin and Caddy Compson, Quentin actually narrows Caddy's character, bringing her into his distorted vision. Through Quentin's eyes, we see Caddy's "sin" and Caddy's "sin" as one. Reality is carried forward through this fusion without objection until the momentum of Quentin's grief is interrupted by the memory of a conversation with Jason Compson, his father. The father and son discuss the value of virginity. Quentin recalls the father's justification for his son's torment: "And the father said that it is because you are a virgin: don't you see? Women are never virgins. Purity is a negative state and therefore contrary to nature. It is nature that makes you it hurts, not Caddy and I said It's just words and he said So it's virginity and I said you don't know, you can't know and he said Yes the instant we realize the tragedy is second hand” (Faulkner 116). Keep in mind: This is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Through Mr. Compson, Faulkner provides a more objective (but cynical) view of Quentin's obsession with purity. This is where we start to see 747).