Cultural Studies

 

Stallybrass and White’s essay stems from Bakhtin’ thesis on the connection between the carnivalesque and bourgeois hysteria, which uses and develops the work of Freud with hysteria in the mid 1900’s. The instrumental role of carnival throughout history for different communities and its purpose are analyzed in Stallybrass and White’s essay, as well as the war on carnival, from its causes all the way to its results.

 

Prior to the industrial era and the modernization of life, carnivalesque celebrations and rituals were omnipresent in societies around the globe. They differed in a few aspects but the celebrations occurred similarly in different communities. As the world was slowly modernizing, carnivalesque exhibitions and celebrations gained an utmost importance for the people, whom had to work in a controlled environment and live in a society divided in social classes for the first time. The carnival was a necessity for the people living in a new reality for two main reasons: it enabled them to express suppressed energies from modernized everyday life and to invert the social hierarchy, which placed them at the bottom of the ladder. The process of doing actions to channel wild, repressed energies and invert social hierarchy is called catharsis. Freud is credited for the elaboration of the term after doing research on hysteria and its causes.

 

As carnivals was thriving in cities and rural areas, the bourgeoisie took measures to slowly push these celebrations out of city limits because they were considered grotesque, disgusting and a nuisance to them and a thriving modern society. This progressive exclusion of carnival and its practices resulted in the bourgeois being afraid of the displays and imagery projected by it. This fear is so intense that it leads to hysteric demonstrations. There are elements of carnivalesque present in a majority of aspects of life, although it is not displayed in the same context as it used to be. It is best to embrace the carnivalesque instead of being afraid and repulsed by it. Stallybrass and White put the historical evolution of carnival in context, as well as detailing how it has evolved in post-modern societies.