The Utopia Behind The Grotesque

This dissertation uses Wolfgang Kayser's definition of grotesque to analyze the grotesque elements and the Utopian ideal in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker,an epistolary novel of Tobias Smollett.Based on a critical survey of English and Chinese scholarship on The Expedition of Humphry Clinker,this paper studies the grotesque characters,the grotesque scenes and the Utopian ideal based on grotesque in the novel.The core driver of the grotesque characters is estrangement.The dissertation analyzes the characters through physical estrangement and psychological estrangement.The disconnection with environment leads to individual isolation and estrangement.The grotesque scenes are displayed by caricatural exaggeration,man-made disasters,social disorder and chaos.The grotesque scenes reflect the cruelty in human nature and the disintegration of social relationship.The social ideal in the novel originates from the characters' attempts against the grotesque.The attempts have two aspects: the individual struggles and the ideal social image.But all the individual struggles only end with failure in a grotesque world.The ideal social image based on the grotesque social relationship turns into a Utopian ideal.In The Expedition of Humphry Clinker,Tobias Smollett through the grotesque elements and the Utopian ideal constructs a grotesque world where no one could escape.