ABSTRACT
We might say that the predominant theme of failure in Kafka’s writings functions for us the way the Gothic grotesque did for Ruskin. The terrifying grotesque shares, with more sportive forms of grotes-query, the desire to explore “the possibilities of the ugly, the grotesque, the bizarre, to shake loose art from inherited restrictions”. The grotesque is, first and foremost, the objectivation of the ghostly “It”—an absurd and alienated world that overwhelms us with forces that cannot be named. One who understands the grotesque as an eager-minded collaboration with skepticism may conclude that the moral of the Kafka’s tale is this: maybe we can be paranoid enough. Even John Ruskin is more than willing to allow the comic and the grotesque to freely conspire in sportive and playful forms. He knew better than anyone else that the grotesque excludes nothing.
