A Grotesque and Gothic Corporeality : Queer Transgression in Closer and Frisk

Abstract: This thesis investigates how two novels by Dennis Cooper, Closer and Frisk, conceive of queer sexuality as transgressing heteronormative notions of moral standards, and how they challenge these by elevating their subject matters to an excessive degree. Drawing on the concepts of the grotesque and the Gothic, this thesis explores the aesthetics of Closer and Frisk, focusing in particular on the way corporeality figures as a central aspect of how these texts explore the ways in which the body becomes a site for Cooper’s discourses of transgression. Furthermore, drawing on Lee Edelman’s notion of the queer subject as inherently opposed to the value of every social form and structure, it is argued that the adverse representations of Cooper’s subjects work to add to this oppositionality. Thus, this thesis investigates how the queer expressions of desire in the texts are inextricable from the aberrant imagery of the body; the body as Gothically grotesque in the novels provides ways to configure alternative ways of conceptualizing the queer body and investigate its ties to transgression.