2022 IB Diploma Extended Essays

Introduction Scientist Robert Sapolsky once stated that ‘human nature is extraordinarily malleable… [and] that's the most defining thing about our nature’ (Sapolsky, 2017). In saying so, it is important to understand the fundamentals of what makes us human, more so, what drives us to do what we do – a crucial proposition when grasping the concept of ‘Grotesque’ in literature. Both Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God and Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff elaborately exemplify techniques that demonstrate the brutally mundane aura surrounding The Southern USA. Their novels have been classified as ‘Southern Noir’, a genre which depicts the ‘rural, retrograde, and a repository for all the antiquated, “coercive forms of human society” in labor and social practices’ (Hodges, 2011). The literary form of ‘Grotesque’ is often defined as ‘that which transgresses and challenges what is considered normal, bounded, and stable’ (Graulund, 2019). This essentially pushes past the threshold of what is considered as ethically correct or morally acceptable. It is stripped to the rawest form of moral deprivation and draws attention to uncannily savage human behavior, often in an unsettling and sexual manner. However, it is argued that ‘Grotesque did not exaggerate a negative phenomenon for the purpose of rejecting it’ (Owlcation, 2016), rather nullifying the stigma attached to its state of being untouchable. Readers are encouraged to grasp the objective of truth, even when revealed the shocking and disturbing aspects of the ‘Grotesque’. This extended essay aims to investigate the similarities and differences between Cormac McCarthy and Donald Ray Pollock’s writing, in utilizing ‘Grotesque’ to ultimately navigate the readers’ moral compass. Both writers employ graphic imagery and gruesome descriptions of the ‘Grotesque’, as readers are addressed, to explore the inescapable misdemeanor of human nature. Through the lenses of different characters and perspectives, readers are encouraged to understand

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