The swaying pig and the toothless ladythe role of the Grotesque in Virginia Woolf's "To the lighthouse"

Resumen

Immersed within the hopelessness and decay of a world stigmatised by the oppressive forces of fascism, germinating in the context of a lurking conflict, Virginia Woolf sets up a universe of grotesque figures through which the process of demolition of the solid pillars of the constraining socio-political system, based upon the dictatorial precepts of patriarchy, can be perpetrated. Of course, as pertains to the dual process inherent to the grotesque paradigm, beyond the debasement of the outmoded annihilating attempts from patriarchal authority, as well as the anachronous post-Victorian apparatus underneath, Woolf's resort to some of the central parameters of grotesque aesthetics simultaneously entails her vindication for the imperative necessity of destroying conventional categories and values, thereby promoting the creation of a renewed form of unconstrained existence. In tune with this twofold objective of destruction/renewal, this paper examines the presence of the grotesque in the novel, insofar as it represents the crucial instrument for the derision of anachronous values, at the same time as for the fostering of the advent of transformation of a world yearning for urgent renovation.