Abstract:

lack Humor, Brimstone Grotesque and A Terrifying Scenery in the work of Thomas Bernhard named “The Painter”. Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is one of the most important writers of the Austrian postwar literature. All of his works reflect the characteristics of that period. “Bernhardesque” literature (just as the “Kafkaesque”) always shapes the language and brings it out forcing the maximum limits of the semantics and stylistics expression facilities of the language. Bernhard generally figures out the inner world of the modern people psychologically disturbed and represents their wholly technological, noncommunicative and hostile environment in his works, especially features ironic, absurd, and grotesque and a little bit comic elements. Thomas Bernhard, a worldwide famous writer, poet and playwright, wrote a prose novel entitled “Ereignisse” (Events) that includes thirty-one extraordinary stories in 1957. These are the stories can be read both independently from each other and also in coherence. This study is aimed to analyses one of these works, the twelfth one in the light of eclectical way, mostly involves ‘black humor’ which is named “Der Anstreicher” (The Painter). The term Black Humor is generally defined for the works characterized by a desperate, sardonic humor intended to induce laughter as the appropriate response to the apparent meaninglessness and absurdity of existence. This short story of Bernhard tells about an “Event” derived its theme from the daily life and can be thought as a simple work accident but it brings a death to his main character. Narrator narrates this fatal and ordinary event with a horrific, grotesque and agonizing absurdity and as we try to figure out in this study; The Painter includes ‘Black Humor’ in this context.

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