Rhetorical elements of the grotesque and the absurd in Tobias Smollett's Humphry Clinker

Abstract

Smollett's use of comic grotesque and absurd effects is one of the most outstanding qualities of his last novel, Humphry Clinker. This dissertation describes patterns of rhetoric that Smollett uses to create these effects. For the purpose of this study, the absurd includes those comic elements which do not contain an element of threat, horror, or revulsion for the reader. The comic grotesque, on the other hand, does contain these elements. There is a tension in the comic grotesque that is created by the juxtaposition of the comic and the terrifying or the distasteful; such tension is not present in the comic absurd. Smollett controls the rhetorical techniques of the novel so that comic grotesque or comic absurd effects emerge. Smollett has created five letter-writing characters in his epistolary novel, and these correspondents serve as filters through which they perceive themselves and other characters and through which the reader's expectations are directed and controlled. The letters of two of the letter-writing characters, Win Jenkins and Tabitha Bramble, provide an immediate comic (absurd or grotesque) effect through the language which Smollett uses as their means of expression. Dialect, syncope, metathesis, misspellings, malapropisms, irony, hyperbole, parallelism, polysyndeton, and parenthesis are rhetorical techniques used repeatedly and consistently in these letters to create conic effect.