Dark humour, grotesque and dystopia in English literature: A reflection of society with special reference to select works

Black comedy or dark humour is the genre of fiction dealing with issues which are generally considered taboo or socially unacceptable to be discussed too openly. It delves into the grey areas of the social construct of human society such as macabre, mutilation, sexual perversity, cannibalism and other such ghastly elements in the garb of ‘humour’, hence the epithet ‘black’. The portrayal of black humour and depiction of grotesque are the cardinal features of a dystopian literature. This paper aims to study the employment of dark humour under the genre of prose (fiction) with special reference to select works, Edward Bond’s play Saved (1965) and Anthony Burgess’s novella-A clockwork orange (1963). The content of these works includes gratuitous brutality, inhuman behaviour, bestiality, depravity and perversion of the so-called modern urban civilization. All these characteristics point towards the fact that such literary works are actually a foreshadowing of a dystopian world set in a dismal future which anticipates the insensitiveness towards which the whole society has been steadily advancing since ages. This brings home to the question that this paper aims to answer what made or rather led the authors to inscribe such atrocious works! This objective looks forward to study the life history of the authors in order to analyse their psychology and gauge a connection between their biographical details and the works produced, if any. Since literature mirrors society, another purpose is to ascertain the influence of literature on the psyche and morality of the people and vice versa.