Chapter 12, Chapter 4 - Banquet Imagery & Chapter 5 - The Grotesque Image of the Body and Its Sources Summary and Analysis

Bakhtain also explains that during clowning around, no one is mocked; the grotesque mocks but the Clown does not. The grotesque is further defined. This is valuable for those who are not used to the theoretical framework. Satire and hyperbole go together by necessity and not merely by personal wish. Extreme exaggeration of anything inappropriate to vast proportions is the true source of satire.

Mikhail Bakhtain writes about "systems of images" in literature. Theater and other forms of living art have lives separate from and intermingled with daily life. Carnival and festivals show one way that the two coincide. Readers may well recognize how the official and the unofficial continue today...