A Carnivalesque Perspective of Graham Swift's Last Orders

Abstract

Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders has yet to be viewed as containing carnivalesque elements as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World. Through the examination of Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque and through a corresponding close reading of Last Orders, this article details the carnivalesque nature of the locations visited by the characters in the narrative, of the grotesque incidents that occur in these locations, and of the narrative style and structure of the novel itself.