THE CONTEMPT FOR THE FANTASTIC AND THE HUMAN IN THE DROWNED GIANT, BY J. G. BALLARD

Abstract

The drowned giant [1964] (2010) is a fantastic short story by British writer J. G. Ballard about the body of a giant that appears on a beach after a storm. We follow the process of degradation of the giant's body, caused mainly by a series of symbolic and physical violence caused by the population. Understanding the figure of the giant as an “outsize humanoid” (Clute; Grant, 1997), a being that has both human and fantastic characteristics, this article analyzes the violent posture of the human population in relation to the giant’s body, demonstrating that it occurs because there is a contempt for its double nature, allowing the author to criticize how society treats what it considers different. The theoretical framework that supports the research is based on Clute and Grant (1997), Roas (2001), Burke (2014), Nicol (1976), Tang (2019), Rodrigues (2006), and Souza and Souza (2019).