"The Word Picture"

Reflection 4

(In place of Analysis #2)

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

          The streets were filled to capacity as the carnivalesque protestors went into action. It was a protest against the government officials receiving an extremely high salary while the low and middle class people were losing everything. They approached the Unions and asked the officials to come to the bargaining table, but they just sneered and laughed. So this time the people decided to enjoy themselves while performing the “parody of hierarchy” with hope that it would enlighten the officials as to their contemptuous attitude and unconcern toward the citizens in need.

          The carnivalesque is the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian critic, noted for the introduction of this theory which is tied to the genre of the ancient Menippean satire of Greek mythology. Carnival took place one time a year offering the people relief from the austerity of the feudal system and the Roman Catholic Church. They were allowed to offer non-conformist views or acts of rebellion using a satirical flare with all inequalities dispersed. This was a time of position reversals—fools became wise, kings became beggars, and opposites mingled while fact and fantasy was mixed for implementation of their cause. This event was used to resist authority and allow hope so that cultural and potential political change could transpire. Bakhtin’s popularity grew in the postmodern critical arena when he widened the gap allowing the theory of carnival to go beyond a single folk event and designated it as a semiotic cultural code. This method of approach is still used today by groups wanting change and an allowance of time to be heard with no reprisals attached.   

          In analyzing the theory of carnivalesque, the concept of defamiliarizaion enters the equation when grotesque realism (adding a grotesque person as king or queen) is mixed creating a complete distortion of unusual events. By taking art that is familiar and “making it strange” allows people to view the world in a different perspective and it can generate a new concept in thinking. The technique of defamiliarization is the work of Victor Shklovsky in his essay “Art as Technique.”     

Word Count: 352

Works Cited

“Carnivalesque.” En wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, 3 November 2010.

          Web. 1 March 2011.

Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
          New York: W. W. Norton and Company,
         2010. Print.
“Mikhail Bakhtin.” En wikipedia.org. Wikipedia,
         23 March 2011. Web. 2 February 2011.
“Revellers on St. Charles Avenue, 2007.”
         En.wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, 19 October 2007. Web. 12 April 2011.