The Book of the Grotesque

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"The book of the Grotesque " is basically one big list of the supposed truths of this world. The old man who wrote this book believes that these truths are beautiful in and by itself; that is until people come along and snatches them up as their own truth. The truth then becomes a falsehood, making the person a grotesque. People will encounter many "truths" in their lives. These truths have only the potential to make people become grotesques, and cannot be used to define or identify one as being a grotesque. It is up to those who have to choose to select between living by these truths or just letting it go and getting on with their lives.

Everybody will be on the verge of becoming grotesque sometime in their lives, where a battle takes place between two opposing thoughts on the same subject. In the story of "untold lies", Ray Pearson was struggling on whether or not he should tell Hal Winters not to get married. One side of Ray's head is telling him that marriage is a miserable trap, whereas the other side is telling him there's happiness of having a spouse. As Ray ran further away from home to find Hal, the thought of happiness in his own marriage grew smaller, all he could think of was the tremendous responsibility that he is carrying for his family, this weight became Ray's "truth", he decided to tell Hal not to get married, but when he found out Hal had already made up his mind of marrying this women, Ray just laughed and head back to pick up the old coat that he left behind earlier. The coat act as a symbol of Ray's state of mind, at the moment he took off the coat, he became a grotesque by believing that all marriages are miserable. But when Ray puts back on the coat at the end, he had realized that there are also pleasant moments in his marriage too, therefore pulling himself back out of his grotesqueness.

Some people held on to their truth so hard that their grotesqueness completely control their lives. In the story of the "hands", Wing Biddlebaum always believed that there was something wrong with his hands, where touching another person is forbidden. And also there is Wash Williams in "Respectability ", his pass experience made him believes that all women in the world are all manipulative in a bad way.

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