Ghent University Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
The Significance of Sex and Drugs in William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho
Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of “Master in de Taal- Supervisor: en Letterkunde: Engels” by Dylan Prof. Dr. Philippe Codde August 2014 Belgrado
Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, prof. dr. Philippe Codde for his great advice, quick responses and his helpful and motivating corrections of my texts.
Special thanks go to my mom and dad for being fun, inspiring and supporting parents, my sister for her motivational talks and positive vibes, and my grandparents for their encouraging words. I also want to thank my mom a second time for her corrections and comments.
I would like to thank the people working at the University library.
And finally, I would like to thank William S. Burroughs and Bret Easton Ellis for their challenging and genius novels that continued to surprise me while writing this thesis. It would not have been as much fun if they had not written such great works.
1
2 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ...... 1
Table Of Contents ...... 3
Introduction ...... 4
1. Fiction and Social Critique ...... 7 1.1. Historical Overview ...... 7 1.2. Postmodernism...... 10 1.3. The Dystopian Novel...... 12 1.4. The Satirical Novel ...... 13
2. Historical Context...... 16 2.1. The 1950s and the Beat ...... 16 2.2. The 1980s and Blank Fiction...... 21
3. Case Study 1: William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch ...... 26 3.1. Naked Lunch and Society...... 26 3.2. Postmodern Aspects in Naked Lunch...... 30 3.3. Dystopian Aspects in Naked Lunch ...... 33 3.4. Drug Use in Naked Lunch...... 35 3.5. Sex in Naked Lunch ...... 40
4. Case Study 2: Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho...... 45 4.1. American Psycho and Society...... 45 4.2. Postmodern Aspects in American Psycho...... 48 4.3. Satirical Aspects and American Psycho ...... 53 4.4. Drug Use in American Psycho...... 54 4.5. Sex in American Psycho ...... 58
Conclusion ...... 64
Bibliography ...... 67
Words: 23233 (excl. bibliography)
3
4 Introduction
When William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1959) and Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (1991) were released, both novels generated an enormous controversy. Because they both contain numerous explicit and violent sex scenes and depict excessive drug use, the novels shocked critics and readers. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch was first published in France because American obscenity laws prohibited its publication. It was not until 1962 that it became available in the USA, and in 1963 in the UK (Grauerhalz et al. 3). In the case of American Psycho, Ellis had to find a new publisher and faced boycotts, death threats and hate in general (Serpell 48). However, in both novels, the polemic subjects and explicit language have a very specific purpose and social value. Naked Lunch and American Psycho are in fact highly critical of society, and the themes of sex and drugs confirm the social and cultural perspectives that Burroughs and Ellis developed on their respective societies. In this dissertation, I want to analyze the scenes centering on sex and drugs in Naked Lunch and American Psycho to see in which way they contribute to the main ideas and essence of the novels. Critics have previously described some general aspects related to sex and drugs in both novels, but an extensive discussion based on close readings has not yet been done. In my research, I will first establish those aspects of society the authors respectively and explicitly criticize in their novels. For writers, this is probably the most straightforward way of commenting on social or political issues. However, they can voice their commentary implicitly as well. As I already suggested, this happens through the use of certain themes, but it can also be expressed on a formal and narratological level. Before exploring the themes of sexuality and drugs in both works, I will therefore highlight aspects of dystopian literature, satirical literature and postmodernism fiction in the works of Burroughs and Ellis. The dystopia and satire are two genres of which the main aim is social critique, while postmodernism is an important periodizing concept, closely related to society as well. Chapter one will be fully dedicated to the relation between fiction and society. I will start with a brief historical overview of critical fiction, followed by a discussion of the main characteristics of postmodern literature (1.2.), the dystopian novel (1.3.) and satirical fiction (1.4.). Chapter two consists of a brief historical outline of the 1950s and 1980s in the United States of America. Naked Lunch was published towards the end of the fifties and this decade has impacted the novel. Similarly, American Psycho was
5 heavily influenced by the eighties era. As both novels react to their contemporary contexts, it is crucial to get an idea of the most important events and developments of these periods. After these first two chapters, I will analyze the novels themselves: Naked Lunch will be discussed in chapter three and American Psycho in chapter four. The analyses follow a similar structure: first I will show what aspects of society the novels explicitly criticize, and then I will highlight postmodern aspects in the novels and explain their significance. Next I will discuss dystopian features in Naked Lunch and satirical elements in American Psycho. Each novel contains dystopian and satirical elements, but Naked Lunch is definitely more dystopian, whereas American Psycho is clearly more satirical. Finally, I will discuss sexuality and drug use in each novel by a close reading of the most relevant scenes and relating them to the historical contexts of the works and the critique on contemporary society that is expressed by Burroughs and Ellis. The aim of the analysis is to show how layered social critique in fiction can be and how these layers interact to provide an inclusive commentary of different aspects of society. My major goal, however, is to reveal the real significance of the sexual and drug-related images in Naked Lunch and American Psycho. Although both novels are too often solely referred to for their obscene imagery, I will demonstrate in the following pages that the social critique both works manifested was very novel and even visionary at the time they were released, and that it still is relevant today.
6 1. Fiction and Social Critique
Merely stating that fiction has always been engaged with society is self-evident. So in order to enhance this statement I will provide the necessary arguments. First by giving a historical overview of critical fiction, then by discussing the concept of postmodernism and its characteristics in fiction, and finally by analyzing the main characteristics of the dystopian and satirical novel. Both genres and postmodernism are highly critical of society, which is reflected in formal and narratological features.
1.1. Historical overview
The history of socially engaged fiction sets of in Ancient Greece when Greek playwrights began to employ fiction to comment on society. Euripedes, for instance, criticized contemporary issues in his plays by presenting the audience with historical events about similar issues. His play The Trojan Women (415 BCE), for example, comments on Greek attitudes towards war (Coblenz 277). Aristophanes also combined fiction and social commentary. He wrote the comedies Clouds and Knights that were highly satirical (Ibid.). Roman authors also used fiction to criticize society, and were even responsible for the development of satire as a literary genre. However, after the fall of the Roman Empire most authors began to write about religious matters and non-secular writing only reemerged in the early Renaissance (Coblenz 278). The invention of the printing press at the end of the fifteenth century ensured a greater availability of literature, which allowed for knowledge to be spread more easily. This had an impact on society and obviously resulted in social changes. Many humanist writers, including Desiderius Erasmus, Michel de Montaigne, and Thomas More, wrote about these changes (Coblenz 280). The importance of social critique in fiction grew significantly in the eighteenth century with writers becoming more independent personally and ideologically (Berger 232). This period produced novels like Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift, The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman (1759) by Lawrence Stern and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831) by Victor Hugo. Society and social issues became a prominent topic in fiction from then on. The most famous author of social novels is probably Charles Dickens, whose works mainly deal with the negative impact of the industrialization in England in the nineteenth century (Coblenz 283). His oeuvre
7 includes Oliver Twist (1837-39), David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852) and Hard Times (1845). The United States of America also went through important social changes during the nineteenth century. Again these issues were presented and critiqued in influential novels, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her novel attacked slavery and is often considered “a rallying point for the abolitionist movement” (Coblenz 284). It had a great impact on its readers, showing that novels can influence people to a large extent. After the Civil War, American novelists continued writing about the issues of race and racial discrimination. Mark Twain, for instance, criticized southern society and its attitudes towards black people through travel writing in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). The Progressive Era (from around 1865 until the beginning of WWI) produced many critical novels dealing with the social consequences of the industrial revolution in the United States. An important work is Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906), a naturalistic novel that pushed Roosevelt to initiate an enquiry into the food laws and a reformation of the meatpacking industry (Bradbury 34). Walter B. Rideout argues that, although it cannot yet be considered an actual literary movement, during this period “enough social novels were published […] to form a definite literary development” (51). Another highlight in the history of the critical novel in the US are the 1930s, after the Great Depression. Many writers were influenced by socialism and they wrote so-called ‘proletarian novels’ (Rideout 144). It was generally assumed that, as Bradbury explains it, “the return to realism and naturalism, and above all the move to ‘proletarian literature,’ was the essential direction of Thirties American writing,” but according to him this view is “too simple” (126). Both writers from the older generation, like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and younger writers, for instance, John Steinbeck and Nathanael West, also kept experimenting with form (Bradbury 127). Nonetheless, the content of these novels had a great impact and therefore the thirties remain a definite highlight in the history of critical fiction. In 1952, the Marxist literary critic Granville Hicks even argued: “[S]ince the end of the thirties the novel of social protest has nearly vanished” (356). According to him, young writers seemed less occupied with social issues than the writers of the thirties: “Many of the younger writers think of social problems as both dull and unimportant, and they want to get out and away into the eternal problems of man and his destiny” (359). Although he did not necessarily consider this a bad
8 development, he did wonder how the novel of protest would develop. Hicks concluded by saying: “Good novels can and will be written about the American scene, and I believe that most of them will belong in the tradition of social criticism” (361). Hicks proved to be right, as many authors in the future decades wrote novels critical of society. However, these novels were not always as explicitly critical of society as their predecessors: “If the writings of the Sixties show a clear return to politics and history, this was not expressed (as it has been for the Marxist intellectuals of the 1930s) in the form of a clear ideology, nor in a devotion to social or proletarian realism” (Bradbury 198). Hicks expressed a hope for the development of fiction with a “greater subtlety and a deeper awareness of social complexity” and, generally speaking, this is indeed how the novel further developed. According to Malcolm Bradbury the novel moved into two new directions during the Sixties: that of New Journalism, with writers such as Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson, and that of the postmodern fiction from Susan Sontag, Thomas Pynchon, John Hawkes, Richard Brautigan and others. Both directions are in fact highly concerned with social and political issues. This may seem obvious for New Journalism, but the same counts for postmodernism: “Though postmodernism is often seen as a break with representation and referentiality, it is clearly a fiction of the post-war world and its crises and anxieties” (Bradbury 209). Sixties writing was also influenced by the counterculture and its ideas on drug use, psychedelic experiences and “the concern with alternative orders of being” (Bradbury 205). During the seventies, fiction became more and more pessimistic when urban violence and drug abuse, and other social issues, began to rise (Bradbury 271). The eighties were additionally characterized by a focus on economic power and mass culture. As will be explained in 2.2, the Reagan-era was utopian, even though the reality was far from a utopia. This created an interesting evolution: “[T]he situation became increasingly dystopian as the celebration of Utopia became a mark of triumph for Anti-Utopia” (Moylan 183). Eighties fiction reveals what is actually the hypocrisy of the 1980s. As the previous paragraphs indicate, fiction in general has always been connected with society. Although this overview was brief and incomplete, it indicates the evolution from clear-cut novels to more complex fictional works. The latter do not focus as much on specific social issues like slavery or the industrialization, but rather attack and criticize broader social and political issues on different levels.
9 1.2. Postmodernism
Postmodernism should not be regarded as a literary genre. While the term is often used to describe a set of formal characteristics, like new modes of metafiction etc., it is more a periodizing concept than an actual genre (Woods 61). In fact, postmodern fiction often consists of a mixture of genres, and contains characteristics of these various genres.1 Although critics often disagree about the definition of postmodernism, there is a general consensus with regard to its relation to society. Linda Hutcheon claims that “the postmodern’s initial concern is to de-naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as natural (they might even include capitalism, patriarchy, liberal humanism) are in fact ‘cultural’; made by us, not given to us” (“Politics” 2). In other words, postmodernism raises questions about reality, norms and conventions. Simon Malpas confirms that postmodernism questions reality and he refers to two other important critics to underline his claim, namely Brian McHale and Jean-François Lyotard. McHale argues that postmodernism raises ontological questions about the status of reality and the world, for example, “What is a world?” and “What happens when different kinds of world are placed in confrontation, or when boundaries between worlds are violated?” (qtd. in Malpas 24). By raising questions about the reality of fictional worlds, postmodern writers engage themselves politically (Malpas 25). Lyotard agrees that “the role of postmodernism is thus to perform an immanent critique of the day-to-day structures or realism” (Malpas 30). According to him the postmodern author breaks down norms and challenges beliefs “by showing the contradictions the culture contains, what it represses, refuses to recognise or makes unpresentable” (ibid.). In short, postmodernism reveals that the norm is not necessarily normal and that certainty does not exist. One way to reflect upon this
1 Postmodernism is a complex concept that invoked many discussions related to its definition, meaning and characteristics. As stated by Brian McHale: “Nothing about this term is unproblematic, nothing about it is entirely satisfactory” (3). Postmodernism can be seen as an artistic and literary movement that follows modernism. This definition considers postmodernism as an aesthetic formation and it is supported by Ihab Hassan, one of the first writers who employed the term ‘postmodern’ (Malpas 7). Jean-François Lyotard, on the other hand, argues that the postmodern is a condition, and others argue the term indicates a period (Ibid.). This is just a selection of the various definitions of the term ‘postmodern.’ A great introduction to the postmodern is The Postmodern (2005) by Simon Malpas, in which the debates surrounding the term and its most important theorists are thoroughly explained. Another great introductory source is Beginning Postmodernism (2009) by Tim Woods. 10 uncertainty in fiction is by transgressing boundaries, one of the main characteristics of postmodern fiction. According to Hutcheon, and many other critics, postmodernism transgresses two major boundaries: “The borders between high art and mass or popular culture and those between discourses of art and discourses of the world (especially history)” (“Politics” 35). The transgression of the boundaries between high culture and mass or popular culture is manifested in fiction by a mixture of different forms, ranging from “historical narrative to grotesque and absurdist black humour and surrealism” (Bradbury 204). The most obvious result of mixing high and low forms of literature is that the boundaries between these genres are blurred. The other effect is that traditional notions of reality are questioned (Woods 71). Put differently, crossing boundaries reveals that certainties do not exist and that boundaries are not as secure as people think. Blurring boundaries between high and low culture also allows for postmodern writers to challenge what is considered prestigious and non-prestigious. Postmodernism strives to blur the boundary between reality and fiction as well. This is what Hutcheon names ‘historiographic metafiction’: “Historiographic metafiction refutes the natural or common-sense methods of distinguishing between historical fact and fiction” (“Poetics” 93) According to Hutcheon, three elements in postmodern fiction allow the transgression of the boundary between history and reality: historical actuality, formalist self-reflexivity and parody (“Politics” 7). Based on Hutcheon’s theory, Tim Woods explains, “postmodern fiction parodically subverts but also inscribes the conventions of realism” (Woods 70). This is a paradox, but this paradox is exactly what postmodernism stands for: there are no certainties and everything is ambiguous. Even the boundary between fact and fiction is uncertain. One way of achieving historiographic metafiction is by parodying intertexts and literary conventions (Hutcheon, “Poetics” 118). Referring to other fictional texts, postmodern works does not only emphasize the fictionality of those texts. Intertextuality also shows that “all meaning comes from seeing relationships, from recognizing that nothing has meaning in itself and that we find meaning by relating our experiences to texts, in all media, with which we are familiar” (A. A. Berger ix). Parody is therefore a mechanism that allows for the postmodern author to challenge our perceived ideas and assumptions. A second way to achieve historiographic metafiction is, obviously, via metafiction or self-reflection. Malpas argues that postmodern writing is “a self-conscious mode of writing, a writing that ‘meta-
11 fictionally’ comments on and investigates its own status as fiction as well as questioning our ideas of the relation between fiction, reality and truth” (26). Although metafictional literature is generally concerned solely with aesthetics and formal experimentation, postmodern works using metafiction are in fact political (Hutcheon, “Poetics” 52). By emphasizing the fictionality of the text, metafiction raises questions about the fictionality of history or reality in the same text. Consequently, the reader realizes that nothing is definite. Besides these main characteristics, postmodern fiction features other elements that are generally considered typical for postmodernism. The narrator of a postmodern text is often unreliable, which also blurs the distinction between fact and fiction, and sometimes there are multiple narratives in one novel, voices that challenge and undermine each other (Malpas 101; 24). Furthermore, postmodern fiction is characterized by fragmentation, open endings and an indifference towards plot and characters (Woods 82; A. A. Berger 87). These features and the transgression of boundaries as explained above, demonstrate that postmodernism’s first concern is questioning and challenging established ideas, conventions and institutions.
1.3. The Dystopian Novel
The dystopian novel originated from utopian fiction and is described as the inverted version of a utopian novel (Moylan 121). Utopian fiction strives to present an ideal society; dystopian fiction, on the other hand, warns for the negative sides of existence (Booker, “Impulse” 19). Besides its connection to utopian fiction, dystopia is also related to science fiction. However M. Keith Booker claims that dystopian fiction irrefutably differs from science fiction because of its focus on social and political critique, which is generally absent from science fiction novels (“Impulse” 19). Social and political critique can be uttered in two ways:
[E]ither through the critical examination of the utopian premises upon which those conditions and systems are based or through the imaginative extension of those conditions and systems into different contexts that more clearly reveal their flaws and contradictions. (Booker, “Guide” 3)
12 Booker mentions defamiliarization as the principal technique of dystopian fiction, which he defines as follows: “By focusing their critiques of society on imaginatively distant settings, dystopian fictions provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable” (“Guide” 3). In other words, dystopian novels attempt to draw attention to problems in the real world by offering a perspective from a different, non-existing, world. Defamiliarization is achieved by setting the story in a place and time that are different from the author’s. However, it remains clear that the novel refers to concrete issues and systems belonging to the real world (Booker, “Impulse” 19). Dystopian fiction is also characterized by other elements. Firstly, a dystopian novel always describes a society that is non-existent. Societies are described in great detail and are usually a lot worse than the society in which the reader lives (Moylan 155). In exaggerating the negative aspects of contemporary society, dystopian authors try to bring their vision across. Secondly, a technique applied by dystopian writers to reinforce their social criticism is the blurring of genre boundaries. Raffaella Baccolini claims that dystopian novels are useful for uttering resistance “with their permeable borders, their questioning of generic conventions, and their resistance to closure” (qtd. in Moylan 190). Specific conventions from other genres are borrowed and this expands the potential for the expression of social and political commentary (Moylan 189). Booker mentions another transgression of boundaries he considers typical for dystopian fiction, namely the border between high and low culture, or as he phrases it: “the mixture of seriousness and silliness” (“Impulse” 141). He explains how this is distinctive for postmodern fiction and points out that the transgression of boundaries is also frequently present in novels that are dystopian of nature. Finally, open endings and the absence of closure are also characteristic of dystopian literature and they further show how dystopian novels raise questions about the reliability of political and social systems by underlining, as with postmodernism, that nothing is certain.
1.4. The Satirical Novel Satire is an old literary genre with its roots in the Antiquity. One of the first great satirists was Horace and according to him the satirist is supposed to ridicule the foolish
13 behavior of mankind (Griffin 7). Ridiculing is obviously a crucial element of satires. However, the genre has other characteristics that matter as well. What is most important for a satirical novel is that it should be clear what exactly is criticized (Petro 17). According to Edward J. Rosenheim, Jr. the fictional creations have “definite referents in the real world” (Petro 17). Griffin supports a more nuanced view and states that references to historical particularities have “a curious in- between status” as he thinks they are not completely fictional, nor completely factual (Griffin 121). In this sense, satire also transgresses the boundary between reality and fiction. Besides, Petro argues that in satire the target always has an ideal counterpart, which represents the author’s social, political or cultural norm. Although this norm is rarely explicitly expressed, it should be clear to the reader that the satiric target deviates from that norm. The main technique used in satirical works to criticize aspects of society is mockery. Satirists exaggerate certain facets of society and, in doing so, show how fatuous these elements are. As Dustin Griffin asserts: “[Satire] seeks to persuade an audience that something or someone is reprehensible or ridiculous” (1). Pointing towards nonsensical aspects of society and challenging the norm is the main aim of satirical authors. As a result, satires usually have an open ending (Griffin 96). According to Griffin this is “a problem that satirists have historically had difficulty solving” (96). Yet, it should not necessarily be considered a problem. Offering a clear- cut solution is simply not what satirists strive for. As said, satirical novels are often left unresolved because they are more concerned with questioning and unsettling than with declaring or concluding anything (Griffin 95). However, there is some discussion as to whether satire has any political power. Griffin, for example, asserts that not all satirists are necessarily motivated by particular political principles or ideologies (149). He further argues that critics have overrated the political power of satire in the past, since “satire does not cause the fall of princes or bring revolution” (160). It is, however, not because satire fails to bring forth revolutions that it cannot provoke people to reconsider certain conventions. In the end Griffin does agree that satire can have a certain impact on its readers: “Among other readers political satire may induce a kind of skepticism or detachment, even a weary cynicism, about politics and politicians” (158).
14 In conclusion, writers have always used fiction to utter their critique on society and to challenge people’s assumptions about political and social conventions. The dystopian and satirical genres and the literary movement of postmodernism share many characteristics that successfully allow authors to raise questions about social and political issues. In the following chapters, the characteristics of postmodernism, satire and dystopian fiction will be applied to Naked Lunch by William Burroughs and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis in order to demonstrate how these novels challenge social norms and political constitutions on a formal and narratological level.
15 2. Historical Context Naked Lunch (1959) and American Psycho (1991) react to their contemporary backgrounds, therefore a historical overview highlighting the most important social issues and developments of these periods is obviously in order. I will first discuss the 1950s and the literary Beatnik movement, in relation to William Burroughs. Afterwards, I will focus on the 1980s and Blank fiction, as these relate to Bret Easton Ellis.
2.1. The 1950s and the Beat The 1950s in the United States of America were a complex time in which accomplishment and prosperity existed together with defeat and failure. At first, the fifties were characterized by feelings of insecurity because “life was pretty uncertain after two world wars and two atomic bombs in too little time” (Hasset 22). People were afraid of how World War II would impact society. They feared an economic depression and problems like the lack of available housing, unemployment and a high divorce rate. Most of these issues were, however, settled rather quickly, and against all expectations, the American economy boomed rapidly (Yannella 57).2 Moreover, the US actually came out of the war as the “greatest economic and military power on the planet” (Jenkins 230). This unexpected economic boost was the result of consumer spending. Since little was produced during the war, people had not consumed as much as usual. Therefore they were able to save up quite some money, which they were eager to spend after the war ended (Norton et al. 758). Besides this economic boost, the 1950s in America were also characterized by a baby boom. More than 4 million babies were born each year from 1957 until 1965 and when the children of the baby boom generation grew up, they had a large impact on housing, popular music, the job market and so on. In other words, the baby boom caused not only demographical but also significant economic, social and cultural changes in American society (Norton et al. 759). The population growth was also one of the causes of the suburbanization of the US, which increased during the 1950s. Families, generally
2 The housing shortage was the result of the fact that no new housing was built in the previous years. When the construction industry began to bloom in the suburbs, the housing shortage was solved. The unemployment problem was solved when the US began its economic expansion and the high divorce rate declined after 1947 (Yannella 57).
16 white, moved out of the cities into the suburbs, where housing was less expensive and where they were able to own their own house.3 Even though many Americans feared the worst, life after World War II seemed pretty good. According to Philip R. Yannella “there was some triumphalism expressed in the US, some assertiveness about how the country was the best that had ever existed in the world, the number one place in God’s universe” (Yannella 57). However, this triumphal and idealistic image of the US in the 1950s is not completely correct. The war did have a serious impact on society. The Holocaust left deep scars and people began to question the value of high culture and Western superiority (Hemmer 4). So, while the fifties were a period of optimism and triumph, they were also a time of complex social issues and feelings of defeat and fear, especially concerning “external aggression and internal subversion” (Jenkins 231). One of the largest fears was the threat of communism, also called the ‘Red Scare.’ American foreign policy was very much concerned with the fight against communism, which lasted up until the late 1960s (Jenkins 256). During the 1950s, America was confronted with many war scares, more specifically by the Soviet Union and Korea. These threats were often related to communism, and they eventually led to the outbreak of the Cold War (Jenkins 256). The Soviet Union and Korea were not the only countries jeopardizing the US. Vietnam also posed a threat: “Since the late 1950s, hostilities in Vietnam increased, as Ho Chi Minh assisted the Vietcong guerillas in the South in reunifying the country under a communist government” (Norton et al. 800). The conflict in Vietnam eventually erupted during the 1960s. A second issue of the 1950s was racial and gender inequality. American society was still based on segregation, black people were still discriminated against and were often victims of racial violence. However, the black community began to fight against these discriminations based on the color of their skin. World War II had created a demand for equality: “War and its related social changes had a particular impact on American race relations” (Jenkins 245). A critical black middle class that was composed of college-educated activists, union workers and war veterans emerged (Norton et al. 767). Also, black veterans who helped win the war rightfully felt they deserved “to improve their status and to end discrimination” (Norton et al. 784).
3 Interestingly not all white families moved for economic reasons. Some lived in neighborhoods where black families began to settle. The white families did not approve of this, causing them to move to the white suburban areas outside the cities (Norton et al. 760). Racism was clearly a large issue during the 1950s that impacted society on different levels.
17 Around the mid-1950s, the struggle for civil rights was a large movement all over the US, both in the northern and southern states. One event in particular would cause a fundamental change, namely the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955. This incident inspired the Montgomery bus boycott, which in turn encouraged many people to oppose black racism (Norton et al. 768). Politicians were also concerned with the issue of racial inequality. President Truman signed an executive order in 1946 that established the President’s Commission on Civil Rights, “which produced a report that became the civil rights’ movement agenda for the next twenty years – calling for legislation to end lynching and segregation and guarantee voting rights and equality in employment” (Norton et al. 784). Supported by politicians, black people were destined to make a change, as Jenkins concludes: “The Civil Rights Revolution had begun” (246). At the same time, women were fighting against discrimination based on gender. In those days, women and men still had distinctive roles based on gender: men were the main source of income, while women took care of the household and children. As white families began to move to the suburbs, many of these women felt isolated from the “large world” and they began to combine their domestic role with a part-time job. Usually the money they earned went to a specific family goal such as a new car or college tuition, so the part-time job did not help them gain a form of independence (Norton et al. 775). But just like black people who only gradually became emancipated, women in general suffered a lot of discrimination against their gender on the work force. A final social issue, and one that can be related to gender issues, was sexuality. Only “heterosexual intercourse within marriage was socially acceptable;” therefore, anything that differed from this was rejected, such as pregnancy outside of marriage, homosexuality etc. (Norton et al. 776). In other words, people’s ideas on sexuality were still rather conservative. On the other hand, with the emergence of the Pill, and penicillin, people were able to have more carefree sex. Sex did not necessarily lead to serious illnesses or pregnancy anymore, which gradually impacted how people looked at sex and sexuality (Norton et al. 863). The fifties were also marked by the emergence of a large middle class. There were more and better paying jobs that allowed working class people to move up to the middle class (Norton et al. 784). Even though this 'upward move' can be considered a good thing, the middle class culture also had some negative consequences: “Influential critics condemned middle-class culture as a wasteland of conformity, homogeneity,
18 and ugly consumerism” (Norton et al. 778). Consumerism, related to middle class prosperity, led to a wasteful and unsustainable society. Products were not replaced when they wore out, but when they were outdated. Also, mass production and consumerism increased pollution and this affected the health of the American people. Furthermore, racial discrimination continued and programs that supported the middle class often hurt the poor. For example, the National Housing Act of 1949 promised “decent housing via urban redevelopment; for the poor, that meant slum clearance, replacing their neighborhoods with luxury high-rise buildings, parking lots, and even highways” (Norton et al. 785). The 1950s were clearly a period of economic and social growth on one hand, but also of inequality and many other problems on the other hand. Of course, not everyone wanted to conform to the ideals of the middle class. Many people actually disagreed with its values and this reaction is, for instance, reflected in the fiction of that period. Literary works presented characters and topics that opposed the ideals and principles of middle class culture and presented a different lifestyle. For example, much of the American literature of the postwar era dealt with outcasts. Fiction was “populated by juvenile offenders, wildly rebellious young men, young men victimized by American society, hipsters traveling in constellations disconnected from mainstream society young and old people suffering from some sort of mental illness” (Yannella 70). A literary movement of people who rejected society emerged and became known as the Beat Generation. The Beats, as they were called, disagreed completely with society and they rejected “the glut of postwar materialism and an obsessive national conformism” (Tytell 57). Instead they “embraced impulsivity and spontaneity, tried to escape everyday life and openly enjoyed sexuality and drug use” (Norton et al. 778). Most of the writers were outcasts and many of them even faced criminal charges at one point in their lives (Hemmer n. pag.). They promoted the figure of the rebel who does not conform to society, trying to survive “in a world where radicals on both sides were equally dangerous” (ibid.). Although many of them clearly favored lifestyles that were generally not accepted during those times, their literature was not revolutionary, simply because they did not believe in revolutions (ibid.). They usually do not explicitly address political issues or advocate a
19 particular point of view.4 According to Hettie Jones, the Beats, although often “remembered as apolitical,” were simply “a growing consciousness” (Hemmer n. pag.). Instead of actively engaging their readers with political and social topics, they presented them with their own way of life and, in doing so, indirectly impacted their audience. They influenced many following generations and their rebellion stimulated the counterculture of the 1960s (Knight 3). Herbert Hunke was the first person to use the word beat to describe “the ‘beaten’ condition of worn-out travelers for whom home was the road” and he used it to “explain his ‘exalted exhaustion’ of a life lived beyond the edge” (Knight 2). In the mid-1940s, the word was picked up by the founders of the Beat movement, namely Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs (Douglas 5). Although they each interpreted the word differently, to them 'beat' referred to a revolution in behavior, more specifically “one that made hitchhiking, jazz, genderbending, left-wing attitude and high-style low life de rigeur for anyone aspiring to hipster status” (Douglas 6).5 Beat literature is characterized by a emphasis on themes that were not focused on before. Both Ginsberg and Kerouac, and many other writers of their generation, emphasize on the individual:
Ginsberg and Kerouac made personality the center and subject of their work. In the Fifties, when the voice of personality seemed so endangered by anonymity of sameness, the Beats discovered a natural counter for the silence of the day in a new sense of self, a renaissance of the romantic impulse to combat unbelievably superior forces. (Tytell 62)
According to John Tytell “the Fifties were times of extra-ordinary insecurity, of profound powerlessness as far as individual effort was concerned" (Tytell 59). This
4 The most influential and best-known works are probably On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac and Howl (1955) by Allen Ginsberg. Both of these works show how the Beats opposed contemporary society and how their ideologies differed from those of middle class culture. Howl explicitly criticizes American society and accuses it of being repressive and banal, and of destroying the “best minds of our generation” and, in doing so, creating crazy people (Yannella 77). On the Road, on the other hand, does not really express explicit commentary, but rather presents a certain lifestyle, free-spirited, that contrasts with the average lifestyle of the 1950s. It is in the words of containment culture” (Kurt Hemmer n. pag.). 5 According to Ginsberg and Kerouac it meant exhausted, poor, beatific. Burroughs, on the other hand, preferred to use it as a verb, meaning to steal or con (Douglas 5).
20 emphasis on the individual is, in other words, a reaction to a society in which the individual was considered powerless, and in which conforming to society was the way to go (Tytell 59). Another recurring theme in the work of the Beat writers is madness. The focus on mad people and madness was equally a way to react to society: “All the Beat writers [...] use madness as a source of wonder, as a way of breaking through the apathy that they found so asphyxiating in the Fifties” (Tytell 65). In addition, the Beats also wrote extensively on bop, sex and drugs.6 The latter two themes will be discussed in greater depth with regard to Burroughs’ Naked Lunch in chapter 3. As it turns out, the 1950s were not as positive as idealized images of this decade make it appear. Many Americans lived in constant fear for new wars and communism, and minority groups such as black people and women struggled for emancipation. The middle class dominated American society with its ideals and principles. The loudest voices critical of society came from the Beats, as they were “simply the first to very vocally and artistically decry American materialism and conformity” (Knight 3). Although, Knight does not refer to artists, philosophers and other people who also articulated commentary on society, it is true that the Beat Generation were one of the most influential voices of the 1950s.
2.2. The 1980s and Blank Fiction Like the fifties, the eighties were a period in which the US was left in shock because of the events of the sixties and seventies. Remarkably, those decades brought forth some important improvements. Socially and culturally many things had in fact positively changed: gender rights grew more important, abortion was – temporarily -legal, the sexual revolution continued as well, due to the pill and penicillin, and criminal justice was revolutionized (Jenkins 286). Politically, however, the 1960s and 1970s seemed “like a lengthy catalog of disasters and disappointments” (Jenkins 284). These disasters include “defeat in Vietnam, the resignation of a president in disgrace, the energy crisis, economic stagflation, and the Iranian hostage crisis” (Norton et al. 849). So when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, he inherited an America that
6 Bop was invented during the 1950s and transformed jazz music and many of the writers of the Beat Generation were highly influenced by this fresh sound. A great article on the relation between bop and the Beat Generation is “Beat Jazz: The Real Thing” by John Swenson.
21 was hurt by all the humiliations and losses of the previous periods (Mills 12).7 However, according to Reagan “the cynics were wrong. America never was a sick society” and he focused on triumph and prosperity instead (qtd. in Mills 12). The American culture of the 1980s would be based on the acquisition of wealth and the appearance of financial success. As Reagan stated: “What I want to see above all is that this remains a country where someone can always get rich” (Mills 13). Exuding wealth was important, because it was a way to move on from the previous disasters and defeats (Mills 13). In other words, by appearing fresh and thriving, people would forget their fears and insecurities. Reagan himself immediately set the example after his election. The first inauguration celebrations for the president cost around 8 million dollars and these celebrations “set the tone for the extravaganzas that followed” (Mills 16). Other examples of Reagan’s extravagant spending are the Olympic games in 1984 and the hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 (Mills 17).8 Economic success and triumph mattered so much, to the extent that ethics did not matter at all (Mills 14). Reagan’s economic plan, the ‘Reagonomics,’ focused on reducing government spending as the president argued that “U.S. economic problems were caused by intrusive government regulation of business and industry, expensive social programs, high taxes, and deficit spending – in short, government itself” (Norton et al 852). In a way, Reagan did succeed as stagflation was successfully ended, which led to an economic boom, and his deregulation allowed for smaller companies to join fields that were previously dominated by large corporations (Norton et al. 873). However, the 1980s were not necessarily the greatest of times:
Deep tax cuts and massive increases in defense spending boosted the national debt from $994 billion to more than $2.9 trillion. Pro-business policies, such as deregulation, created opportunities for economic growth but also opened the door to corruption. Policies that benefited the wealthy at the expense of middle-class or poor
7 Reagan’s opponent was Jimmy Carter, and Reagan’s victory can be partly explained by shifts in electoral geography. The Sunbelt states grew, causing them to acquire more electoral votes than the northern states. Southern voters voted for Reagan as his conservative New Right ideas fitted their political opinions (Jenkins 291). 8 The opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles cost 6 million dollars and were directed by David Wolper, a Hollywood producer. Wolper hired a cast of 9000 people to perform during both ceremonies. He also directed the hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, on July 4 1986. This event was even more decadent; it had a budget of 30 million dollars (Mills 17).
22 Americans widened the gulf between the rich and everyone else. Drug addiction, crime, and violence grew, especially in impoverished areas. (Norton et al. 872)
Clearly, the US was confronted with many social problems during the 1980s. Reagan, however, did not see these problems as urgent and focused on other things instead. His foreign policy was very aggressive and the threat of communism and fear for terror attacks still greatly impacted the American people. As a result, and also because of the focus on the appearance of power and success, the US began spending more money on military services. The military budget more than doubled between 1980 and 1987; annually about 282 billion dollars were spent on military services (Mills 14). Reagan’s decadent spending on celebrations and the military had some negative consequences, one of which was that it helped cause the American deficit crisis (Jenkins 292). The poor, however, were the largest victims of Reagan’s politics because he thought the government did not need to support them. As he once argued: “Federal welfare programs have created a massive social problem. Government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor most need to lift themselves out of poverty – the family” (Mills 19). So, according to Reagan, the poor were better off without any help from the government. Also, during the 1980s there was “a renewed emphasis on the responsibility of the individual, and a denial of the effectiveness or validity of solutions that emphasized the state or the social dimension" (Jenkins 296). People had to take care of themselves, also financially, and Reagan did not believe in public welfare, which, as a result, suffered from heavy cutbacks (Jenkins 296). Consequently, the rich got richer, while the poor only got poorer. Furthermore, the financial world of the 1980s was filled with corruption and the period is therefore characterized by many economic scandals (Norton et al. 855).9 Reagan also did not pay a lot of attention to the environment as he thought federal environmental regulations reduced business profits and discouraged economic growth (Norton et al. 850). Business and economic prosperity were Reagan’s priorities; anything else only stood in the way of financial success. As Reagan did not pay much attention to the well-being of his country, America in the eighties was characterized
9 One scandal can even be related to the White House. Namely, Neil Bush, Vice President Bush’s son, was involved in “shady S&L deals” and the bailout of the S&L industry cost half a trillion dollars, paid with taxes (Norton et al. 855).
23 by many social crises, as mentioned before, like growing violence, drug abuse and homelessness in cities (Norton et al. 862). Racial inequality was also still unresolved in the 1980s. When in the 60s and 70s, immigrants from Asia and Latin America moved to the US racial and ethnic tensions only increased (Norton et al. 873). Americans feared that these immigrants would take their jobs, threatening their economic security, and as a result, racism and racial prejudice kept growing. America became racially and ethnically more varied, but the country was not prepared for this. Also telling is that more African-Americans and Hispanics than white people lived below poverty level (Norton et al. 862). Another social crisis that marked the eighties was the AIDS epidemic. With the discoveries of penicillin and the pill during the 1960s and 1970s to cure sexually transmitted diseases and to control pregnancy, sex had fewer risks than ever before (Norton et al. 863). This resulted in a sexual revolution with more experimentation, less monogamy and more promiscuity. However, the positive attitude towards sex was tempered when AIDS was first discovered in 1981. Between 1981 and 1988, nearly 57.000 AIDS cases were reported, almost 32.000 of which ended in death (Norton et al. 863). The emergence of AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases, brought an end to an era in which sex was a positive and safe thing (Norton et al 862). A final social crisis was related to religion. A number of conservative Christians had banded together in a coalition called the New Right. They rejected multiculturalism and wanted “God’s laws” as the basis for American society (Norton et al. 861). An opposing group was founded by Norman Lear, Barbara Jordan, and other people, and was named People for the American Way. They saw the New Right's ideas as threats to basic freedoms, like religions that differed from the conservative Christianity of the New Right. One belief of the New Right that was particularly opposed was the idea that women belonged at home and had to subordinate to their husband. This idea contrasted with the freedoms and rights women had fought for and gained during the previous decades. The conflict between the conservative and liberal people was named the ‘culture wars’ and it divided the nation (Norton et al. 861). In short, while the previous decades were generally characterized by revolution and gradual social change, the eighties were desperate times haunted by unresolved issues. Reagan’s approach “helped America fantasize and temporarily escape its real problems, and it made the populace feel good about themselves and
24 their country through their suspension of disbelief” (Donelly 19). However, fantasizing and pretending did not solve any problems, and as Mills concluded: “While the victories of the culture of triumph have been frequent, they have been rather hollow” (Mills 27). The Reagan era was an era of make-belief and of making money. During the Reagan Era, a group of aspiring young authors emerged, many of which were first published in the mid-eighties (Huys 3). These writers included Tama Janowitz, Patrick McGrath, Denis Cooper, Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis. Their work was initially well received, and critics praised their technical writing skills and their affinity with sex, drugs and youth (Young 16). Some critics had a desire to compare these writers to the Beat Generation and the urge to group them together was strong, so they were labeled as the ‘Brat Pack’. On the surface their work had similarities, but this generalization was not completely correct (Huys 5). At any rate, the “Brat Pack” was insanely popular in the media and, consequently, the writers became full-on celebrities. Interestingly, from this moment on, their popularity began to fade with critics and journalists who commented that the authors should not have a celebrity status and that “writers should be read and not seen” (Yardley qtd. in Huys 7). Eventually journalists and critics were convinced the “Brat Pack” was not more than a hype, and as a result they were not taken seriously anymore. Although labeling these writers did not exactly benefit them, it is difficult to not group them together as they do share a common context and vision. As James Annesley explains: “[W]hile there is no ‘blank manifesto,’ these affinities suggest the existence of a ‘blank’ scene” (3). Both he and Elizabeth Young prefer to use the term ‘blank fiction’ or ‘Blank Generation’ to refer to these writers, and others with similar work. The term expresses their ‘flat, affectless” writing style that characterized their works and stunned their audience (Young xii). Blank fiction was the opposite of the fiction existing at that time: “Instead of the dense plots, elaborate styles and political subjects that provide the material for writers like Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon and Norman Mailer, these fictions seem determined to adopt a looser approach” (Annesley 2). However, the looser approach and affectless prose cannot be mistaken for a lack of concern with social issues. Instead, they exaggerate the affectless character of their generation in order to satirize it. Blank fiction comments on reality by offering a detailed portrait of that reality. As James Annesley puts it: “They […] draw their material from the particularities of this period and offer images of the excesses of New York in the 1980s” (5). Their subject matter was also striking. The
25 novels dealt with aspects of contemporary life: “crime, drugs, sexual excess, media overload, consumer madness, inner-city decay and fashion-crazed nightlife” (Young xii). Authors of Blank fiction challenge the societal norm by revealing its contradictions and by highlighting its superficial character. Blank fiction, like Beat literature, was not revolutionary. These authors did not cause movements or protest groups. Instead, the main goal was to question reality and confront people with their own hypocrisy.
26 3. Case Study 1: William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch Filled with images of excess and obscenity, William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch challenges a society led by tyrannical, authoritarian systems. The novel contains explicit critique on American society, which will be discussed firstly (3.1). Yet Burroughs expresses his loathing of 1950s America indirectly and implicitly as well. The novel contains elements of postmodernism and dystopian literature that reveal and emphasize his critique (3.2 & 3.3). But even more telling are the themes of sexuality and drug use. At first, these gave Naked Lunch a merely bad and sensational reputation. However, a close reading will show that the grotesque scenes carry a lot of meaning (3.4 & 3.5).10
3.1. Naked Lunch and Society “Of all the Beat Generation writers, William S. Burroughs, who died on August 2, 1997, at the age of eighty-three, was the most dangerous” (MacAdams, 171).11 That is, Burroughs persistently attacked middle-class values; he was the enemy of authorities and conformists (ibid.). In Naked Lunch, Burroughs is explicitly critical of the US: “America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting” (NL 11). It is difficult to escape the destructive power of the US:
And the U.S. drag closes around us like no other drag in the world, worse than the Andes, high mountain towns, cold wind down from postcard mountains, thin air like death in the throat […] You can’t see it, you don’t know where it comes from. (NL 12)
According to Burroughs, the US is suffocating and no one can evade its control; freedom is gone. Rejecting the conservative American values of 1950s, Burroughs attacks society’s obsession with control: “Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference” (NL 179). Americans need guidance – or at least think they do – since they are afraid of chaos,
10 In citations, Naked Lunch is abbreviated to NL, this is also the case with American Psycho (AP) in the following chapter. Other novels are not be abbreviated. 11 Although MacAdams refers to Burroughs’ attacks on society in his literature, the author was also dangerous in the literal sense. He was arrested multiple times, for drug-related incidents, and accidentally killed his former wife in 1951 (Hemmer n. pag.; MacAdams 172).
27 of losing control. Burroughs likes to mock this obsession of the US with imposed order. In a hysterical scene a diplomat’s speech is constantly interrupted by a “decayed, corseted tenor” singing the Star Spangled Banner with a lisp:
TENOR: “Oh thay can you thee …” […] THE DIPLOMAT: “That any male citizen of the United States has given birth in Interzone or at any other place …” “O’er the land of the FREEEEEEEEEEE …” (NL 53)
The emphasis on ‘free’ is ironical, as Burroughs reveals in his novel that individuals in the US are by no means free. The scene is also mocking patriotic people who blindly believe in the honesty of America’s leaders and never seem to question political or social issues. Burroughs disagrees with the political establishment and articulates this in Naked Lunch in fervent ways. He expresses his opinion on certain political systems, for instance, on democracy:
Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. (NL 112)
Burroughs does not necessarily critiques democracy as a model, but rather the authorities in control of the democratic system, the bureaus. Another passage showing Burroughs’ disagreement with a democratic system is the following: “The forms of democracy are scrupulously enforced on the Island. There is a Senate and a Congress, who carry on endless sessions discussing garbage disposal and outhouse inspection, the only two questions over which they have jurisdiction” (NL 153). Although democracy sounds idealistic in theory, it appears that the Senate and Congress can only participate in trivial matters. Burroughs deems the state untrustworthy, and therefore supports cooperatives: “A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet needs of the people who participate in the functioning of the unit” (NL 112). According to John Tytell, these passages are striking and important, since they are one of the few
28 explicitly ideological passages in the novel, or even in Burroughs’ complete oeuvre (Tytell 61). His condescension of future prospects and his rather pessimistic attitude are what distinct him from the rest of Beat writers. Authorial figures are also subject of critique in Naked Lunch. Policemen, for example, are frequently commented on:
And always cops: smooth college-trained state cops, practiced, apologetic patter, electronic eyes weigh your car and luggage, clothes and face; snarling big city dicks, soft-spoken country sheriffs with something black and menacing in old eyes color of a faded grey flannel shirt […]. (NL 11)
Cops are always around and in Burroughs' descriptions they do not appear as people with individual thoughts, but puppets that work for the state. Burroughs also mocks political leaders. He cannot take them seriously, since they have a “new title every week” (NL 29). He also describes a Party Leader wearing “expensive English shoes, loud socks, garters, muscular hairy legs – overall effect of a successful gangster in drag” (NL 102). Basically, Burroughs is parodying political people. Besides mocking politicians, Burroughs also ridicules political organizations: “And when the Cincinnati Anti-Fluoride Society met to toast their victory in pure spring water, all their teeth dropped out on the spot” (NL 123). Burroughs does not support belonging to a movement and, although he is often related to the Beat movement, he never fully identified with the Beatniks and remained an outsider for his whole career, revealing he strongly believed in the power of independence and individuality (Tytell 62). Finally, lawmaking is not taken seriously in the occurrences depicted in Naked Lunch. Civil cases, for example, are dragged out “until the contestants die or abandon litigation” and the County Clerk, who “assigns the more dangerous missions to his assistants, many of whom have lost their lives in the service,” is clearly not as committed to his job as would be expected of him (NL 142). Another instance of unfair legislation is a scene in which a driver encounters a pregnant woman in the mountains: “[W]ith a load of charcoal on her back, and she miscarried a bloody dead baby in the street, and Keif got out and sat on the curb stirring the blood with a stick while the police questioned Aracknid and finally arrested the woman for a violation of the Sanitary Code” (NL 149). Not only is the “Sanitary Code” pretty ridiculous, the woman is also accused of something she could not really prevent. Burroughs basically
29 implies that the law is stupid and is occupied with controlling people instead of actually helping them. Moreover, laws do not serve a real purpose as they are frequently violated, also in Naked Lunch: “Sex with a replica is strictly forbidden and almost universally practiced” (NL 139). Burroughs’ explicit critique attacks specific institutions, such as politics and legislature. He also does not hide his disgust with America and its occupation with control and restraint. Burroughs advocates for personal freedom and individual choice, which is already revealed in his explicit comments. However, his implicit critique, as shown in the following paragraphs, will emphasize his argument.
3.2. Postmodern Aspects in Naked Lunch Malcolm Bradbury considers Burroughs’ fiction as “Beat fiction at its surrealist, avant- garde edge” (Bradbury 190). He and other critics agree that Burroughs is one of the pioneers of postmodern fiction. Therefore, it comes to no surprise that Naked Lunch is a postmodern novel on many different levels. One of the most important elements of postmodern literature, as explained before, is the crossing of boundaries. Postmodern authors blur the boundary between high and low literature and between fact and fiction. Burroughs crosses both boundaries in Naked Lunch. The distinction between high and low literature is blurred in two ways. Firstly, the novel contains many scatological elements. For example: “Whore staggers out through dust and shit and litter of dead kittens, carrying bales of aborted fetuses, broken condoms, bloody Kotex, shit wrapped in bright color comics” (NL 64). In the same way, restaurant Chez Robert serves “Camel Piss Soup,” “The After-Birth Suprême de Boeuf,” and “Limburger Cheese sugar cured in diabetic urine” (NL 125). The confrontation with excrements is unavoidable. In addition, the term 'assholes' frequently appears in the novel. During a discussion with Dr. Benway, the adviser of Freeland, another character expresses a fantasy: “Instead of a mouth and an anus to get out of order why not have one all-purpose hole to eat and eliminate” (NL 110). Their discussion leads to the recount of the story of a man who taught his asshole to talk. According to Oliver Harris, the asshole “insists on a politicized reading, most patently in terms of oppressed sexual identity” (237). The scene, centered on a talking asshole is deeply symbolic, and is consequently a clear example of the combination of
30 high and low elements. Moreover, the number of pornographic scenes in the novel, which will be discussed in 3.3, is quite high and such scenes are also usually not related to high intellectual literature. Secondly, Naked Lunch is an amalgamation of different forms or genres of literature, going from “scientific treatise, [to] conventional hard boiled-detective fiction[,] parodies of pornography, lyric poetry, and spy adventures” (Loewinsohn 561). The novel further consists of dialogues, streams of consciousness, scenery descriptions, hallucinations, encyclopedic information and parts of a diary. Switches between genres and forms often occur within the same chapter. A rather striking combination consists of standard fictional text interrupted by factual information by the author put between brackets:
“Grassed on me he did,” I said morosely. (Note: Grass is English thief slang for inform.) (NL 4)
The Gimp, cowboyed in the Waldorf, Gives Birth To A Litter Of Rats. (Cowboy: New York hood talk means kill the mother fucker wherever you find him. A rat is a rat is a rat. Is an informer.) (NL 174).
In these examples, obscene fictional text is alternated with encyclopedic information, again an obvious example of how Burroughs transgresses the boundary between high and low literature, between historical and scientific facts and fiction. In this sense, Naked Lunch achieved Linda Hutcheon’s concept of historiographic metafiction. By blurring these boundaries Burroughs rebels against literary conventions and he expresses that literary boundaries are just a human construction. This is an implicit sneer at the values of the 1950s, which were centered on conforming to the norm. The previous example also illustrates how Burroughs blurs the distinction between fact and fiction; the second group of categories postmodernism tries to break down. By including this factual information, the narrator interrupts the fictional world and, in doing so, points to the fictional character of the text. These facts function partly as metafictional statements. Sometimes the narrator even explicitly refers to himself in the encyclopedic comments, emphasizing the fictionality of the text even more: “It occurs to me that preliminary yagé nausea is motion sickness of transport to yagé state […]” (NL 92). Furthermore, the author at one point steps to the foreground
31 as a particular authority: “The author has observed that Arab cock tends to be wide and wedge shaped,” complicating the digression between fact and fiction even more (NL 65). The narrator addresses the reader at different points, for example: “Interested readers are referred to Appendix” and “Gentle reader, the ugliness of that spectacle buggers descriptions (NL 30; 34). Again, these parts draw attention to the fictionality of the text. Other instances of metafiction in Naked Lunch are the stage directions that sometimes occur in the book, such as “On Screen” and “Fade out” (NL 75, 87). As said, metafiction is an important technique used by postmodern authors to blur the distinction between fact and fiction and achieve historiographic metafiction. The emphasis on both factual and fictional parts in the novel, complicate the reader’s perception of what could be based on truths, like the facts, or what is entirely fictional. Burroughs shows that reality and fiction are questionable; there is not always a clear distinction between them and the reader should be conscious of this. Another technique Burroughs uses to challenge the boundary between fact and fiction is that of the unreliable narrator. William Lee, who is the main narrator of Naked Lunch, is a heroin addict and takes many other drugs as well. Most importantly, he is almost constantly under influence and often hallucinates. As a result, he is not reliable for recounting the truth. The obscenity and extreme scenes might even be part of a hallucination. Besides, Lee is not the only narrator. As Loewinsohn indicates: “[N]aked Lunch is further dispersed by its many narrators and many voices, […] that shift kaleidoscopically from straight first person to omniscient third person“ (Loewinsohn 561). There is, in other words, no certainty about the narrator. Most of the time it is not even clear who exactly is narrating. This is a way for Burroughs to show that authorial voices cannot be trusted and they can manipulate you into believing certain things that might not even be true. Naked Lunch is an extremely fragmented novel as well, partly caused by the complex narration and the combination of different styles that are randomly mixed together.12 Fragmentation is also established on the level of content, as the novel is a “series of loosely connected, stream-of-consciousness vignettes” (Cadagin n. pag.). Moreover, it lacks a clear plot and has an open ending. These characteristics serve to
12 Burroughs will take this fragmented structure even further in his later novels, in which he applies the “cut-up” method, as defined by Tytell: “[A]n arbitrary juxtaposition of randomly selected words and phrases” (62).
32 challenge his readers’ presumptions about literature. Burroughs does not follow literary conventions and pushes the borders of fiction. To conclude, even though historically Naked Lunch does not belong to postmodernism, the novel is built up with many postmodern techniques that are used to enforce Burroughs’ political and social message and his attacks on a society that remains impotent and powerless against law and order. Therefore Jeremy Green is right when he considers Burroughs “one of the great progenitors of postmodernism” (214).
3.3. Dystopian Aspects in Naked Lunch According to Tytell, “Naked Lunch is an hallucinatory vision of the very worst expectations of the Fifties” (59). In this sense, the novel can be identified as a dystopian novel. Naked Lunch contains dystopian elements that highlight Burroughs’ rejection of middle class values. According to M. Keith Booker, the novel works around a central opposition typical for dystopian fiction, namely the confrontation between individual desires and the demands of society. He argues that Burroughs supports individual freedom and liberty, and this message is conveyed through dystopian techniques (“Guide” 99). The novel contains a number of dystopian settings, such as “Freeland,” “Annexia” and “Interzone” which are often controlled by corrupt and obscure institutions “that seem to exist almost exclusively for the sake of their power” (Booker “Guide”, 100). Freeland is supposed to be a nice place: “Freeland was a welfare state. If a citizen wanted anything from a load of bone meal to a sexual partner some department was ready to offer effective aid” (NL 155). However, “the threat implicit in this enveloping benevolence stifled the concept of rebellion” (ibid.). The government of Freeland gave its citizens the illusion of freedom by allowing certain things, but in doing so they actually strengthen their control over them. That not everything is as good as it seems is also revealed when the narrator describes Dr. Benway: “The citizens are well adjusted, cooperative, honest, tolerant and above all clean. But the invoking of Dr. Benway indicates all is not well behind that hygienic façade: Benway is a manipulator and coordinator of symbol systems, an expert on all phases of interrogation, brainwashing and control” (NL 19). Burroughs warns his
33 audience that nothing is what it seems. It is, therefore, important to reconsider your perception since corruption and desire for control is everywhere, even in states and countries that at first seem honest. The states in Naked Lunch all heavily control their citizens, for example, Annexia: “Every citizen of Annexia was required to apply for and carry on his person at all times a whole portfolio of documents” (NL 19). And even worse: “All benches were removed from the city, all fountains turned off, all flowers and trees destroyed. Huge electric buzzers on the top of every apartment house (everyone lived in apartments) rang the quarter hour” (NL 20). The representation of these situations in which every citizen’s move is watched, creates a sense of defamiliarization with the readers; an effect that is also caused by the characters in the novel that mainly are drug addicts and homosexuals who are “vulnerable to domination by powerful forces that brutally control their every move” (Booker “Guide,” 99). The citizens are controlled by corrupt people whose aim is single out and punish those who are different from the official norm. As a result, individuality is extinguished (Booker “Guide,” 100). Another dystopian element in Naked Lunch is the questioning of science and technology. As Booker states: “The book is populated by a number of mad-scientist figures whose sinister experiments lead to the subjugation and dehumanization of their subjects” (“Guide,” 100). Science, and more specifically medicine, is mocked and questioned through the character of Dr. Benway: “‘I deplore brutality,’ he said. ‘It’s not efficient. On the other hand, prolonged mistreatment, short of physical violence, gives rise, when skillfully applied, to anxiety and a feeling of special guilt.’” (NL 19). A pretty contradictive statement revealing Benway does not care so much about his patients. He does not take them seriously either and seems to treat his own profession as a joke. After doing “the Blomberg-Stanislouski semen flocculation test” on a patient, he has the results and gives them in the following scene:
“Your uh test … the Robinson-Kleiberg flocculation test …” “I thought it was a Blomberg-Stanislouski test.” The doctor tittered. “Oh dear no … You are getting ahead of me young man. You might have misunderstood. The Blomberg-Sanislouski, weeell … that’s a different sort of test altogether. I do hope … not necessary …” (NL 102)
34 Dr. Benway is not responsible for what he is doing, simply because he does not care and might not even be qualified for his job. Another example of doctors who cannot be trusted is the following: “All the skill is going out of surgery […] all the know-how and make-do […] Did I ever tell you about the time I performed an appendectomy with a rusty sardine can?” (NL 51). Burroughs also warns for the corruption of the medical world: “The anesthetist takes advantage of the confusion to pry a large gold filling from the patient’s mouth […]” (NL 52). To make his point, Burroughs presents non-existing societies in which contemporary issues, mainly the corruption of authority, homophobia and the medical world, are even worse than they are in reality. He describes them with much detail and mostly focuses on the bad aspects. Although time is undefined in the novel, it seems to be set somewhere in the future. It is also set in non-existing places. As a result, the reader experiences a sense of defamiliarization. By defamiliarizing his audience, Burroughs is able to draw their attention to social and political practices that are usually not questioned. Dystopian novels blur boundaries of genres and high and low culture, again, to question conventions and what is considered normal. As I already extensively discussed above, these boundaries are transgressed in Naked Lunch. Finally, with regard to dystopian elements, Naked Lunch is characterized by an absence of closure; there is no closed ending, typical for dystopian fiction. Naked Lunch clearly contains dystopian characteristics on the levels of form and content that underline Burroughs' condemnation of oppressive authorities and other social issues.
3.4. Drug Use in Naked Lunch Drugs play a significant role in most of the Beats’ literature and in general cannabis is the most prevalent: “For the Beat writers, cannabis held the utopian promise of escape from white America, just as the use of the drug by mid-nineteenth-century French writers held out the promise of escaping from bourgeois Paris” (Boon 160). Drug use and addiction are recurring themes in Burroughs’ oeuvre, but he wrote about other drugs than marijuana.13 The drug that is mostly used in Naked Lunch is heroin, referred to in the novel as ‘junk.’ Heroin is processed from morphine, an opiate that is extracted from poppy
13 His debut, Junky (1953), is fully dedicated to heroin use and the world surrounding the drug. The novel is characterized by an unsentimental writing style.
35 plants, and was first synthesized in 1874. It was originally a cough suppressant and a substitute for morphine, as scientists thought that heroin was less addictive than morphine, which unfortunately was not the case (Drugpolicy “Heroin Facts”). Heroin can be smoked, snorted or injected. Usually the user will start off by smoking or inhaling it, but will inject the drug in a later stadium (Hellinga e.a. 114). Heroin gives the user a feeling of euphoria and triumph; reality is temporarily forgotten. The substance is highly addictive, and eventually the user will become an addict who will only live for his or her addiction. As Burroughs expresses in his novel Junky, junk is “a way of life” (xli). William Lee, the main character and main narrator of Naked Lunch, is a heroin addict and frequently narrates about stocking up on “H” (NL 13).14 In Naked Lunch, Burroughs depicts addicts negatively. Addicts become perverse illusions of human beings, with an unstoppable hunger for junk: “[The Sailor] spoke in his dead, junky whisper. ‘With veins like that, Kid, I’d have myself a time’” (NL 43). When the effects have worked out, the user is left with a bad feeling: “[A]nd the cold you always come down with when the junk runs out of you” (NL 13). This encourages many users to keep taking the drug. Heroin not only impacts their lives and their expectations of life, but it also destructs their bodies: “[Willy] is blind from shooting in the eyeball, his nose and palate eaten away sniffing H, his body a mass of scar tissue hard and dry as wood” (NL 7). The addict’s body is completely destroyed because of the uncountable snorts of heroin. However, the drug destroys more than just the bodies of its users:
So after a bit the channels wear out like veins, and the addict has to find new ones. A vein will come back in time, and by androit vein rotation a junky can piece out the odds if he don’t become an oil burner. But brain cells don’t come back once they’re gone, and when an addict runs out of brain cells he is in a terrible fucking position. (NL 22)
Addicts also risk losing their sanity and intelligence. Eventually, they will become sad creatures that seem to have lost all self-respect and are only concerned with their addiction. In Naked Lunch, this is illustrated with depictions of old junkies:
14 William Burroughs was actually an addict himself and discusses his addiction and how he kicked his habit in “Deposition: Testimony Concerning A Sickness” in NL 199-205.
36 [Old junks] gibber and squeal at the sight of it. The spit hangs off their chin, and their stomach rumbles and all their guts grind in peristalsis while they cook up, dissolving body’s decent skin, you any moment a great blob of protoplasm will flop right out and surround the junk. Really disgusts you to see it. (NL 6)
The addicts have no shame and are only interested in junk. In the above fragment, the narrator even explicitly expresses his disgust with the behavior of addicts. Yet he does not reject or judge addicts for the way they live and how they let their bodies decay. Instead, they are portrayed as helpless victims and, even though his depictions are repulsing, they invoke pity even more than disgust. When stating in the above quote that the sight of these old junkies is disgusting, the narrator actually refers to the effects of drugs as disgusting and not the users themselves. Burroughs considered addiction as a biological process and he described it “as a cellular craving, a disease of exposure similar to a viral infection, rather than a disease of character” (Boon 78). It is, in other words, something addicts cannot avoid as it is part of their body mechanism. In Naked Lunch, Burroughs also underlines that everyone can be an addict, even people with important political functions: “The President is a junky but can’t take it direct because of his position […] He has sacrificed all control, and is dependent as an unborn child” (NL 57). Although Burroughs offers a negative image of heroin addiction, he also discusses positive aspects of drugs, for example of cocaine: “Ever pop Coke in the mainline? It hits you right in the brain, activating connections of pure pleasure” (NL 22). Clearly, cocaine triggers great sensations, which explains why someone would take it. Burroughs has also been known to experiment with psychedelic drugs like peyote, but these do not appear notably in Naked Lunch and it is even believed that he was not a fan of psychedelic drugs at all (Boon 260; 163). There is, however, one interesting passage in Naked Lunch on a psychedelic drug called yage:15
Images fall slow and silent like snow … serenity … All defenses fall … everything is free to enter or go out … Fear is simply impossible … A beautiful blue substance
15 Yage, or Ayahuasca, is a plant-based drink that has been used by South-American tribes for different applications. After the first glass, feelings of ecstasy are released, similar to a trip on MDMA. As the user drinks more of the substance, visions of colors, flowers and mandala forms appear. Eventually users leave reality and basically travel through their subconscious. This can lead to certain insights and confrontations with fears and frustrations (Hellinga et al. 203).
37 flows into me […] Yagé is space-time travel … The room seems to shake and vibrate with motion … The blood and substance of many races, Negro, Polynesian, Mountain Mongol, Desert Nomad, Polyglot Near East, Indian, races as yet unconceived and unborn, passes through the body … (NL 91)
In this description of an intense drug trip, Burroughs is talking about “[T]he breaking down of the symbolically ordered, overcoded Western imagination into a corporeal hyperspace in which many imaginal spaces coexist, like different operating systems on a single computer” (Boon 260). The description shows the mind-expanding impact of drugs and its ability to evoke particular insights in life. Drugs, in this case yage, allow people to unwind and let themselves go completely, which can lead to a different understanding of oneself or society. Burroughs clearly shows the reader both sides of drug use, the addictive, dark side and the eye opening, pleasuring side. He does not take a clear position, but rather wants to share all aspects of drug use with his audience . Therefore he also includes objective, almost scientific, information on drugs. The narrator, for example explains what a ‘hot shot’ is: “Note: This is a cap of poison junk sold to addict for liquidation purposes. Often given to informers. Usually the hot shot is strychnine since it tastes and looks like junk” (NL 4). He also at explains how to shoot ‘PG,’ which stand for Paregoric, a tincture of opium:
Shooting PG is a terrible hassle, you have to burn out the alcohol first, then freeze out the camphor and draw this brown liquid off with a dropper – have to shoot it in the vein or you get an abscess, and usually end up with an abscess no matter where you shoot it. (NL 13)
Information like in the two previous examples, gives readers a glimpse into the complex world of drugs. Burroughs is not merely gloryfying the use of drugs but wants to educate his audience in order for them to make up their own mind on drug issues in an informed way. John Tytell argues that in Naked Lunch “the view of the drug experience is harshly unromantic,” and while this is true for a large part of the novel, I have shown above that the novel also contains objective and even positive depictions of drug use (59). Tytell also states that Naked Lunch contains educative warnings against addiction, and this is correct, as Burroughs’s depictions of addicts are not romantic at all (ibid.).
38 But whereas the novel contains warnings against drug addiction, it is not dismissive of drug use in general: “Junk is surrounded by magic and taboos, curses and amulets” (NL 6). Naked Lunch is clearly not an attack on addicts or drugs. As mentioned before, the novel is primordially an attack on the restriction of individual freedom and choice. The portrayal of drugs is related to the critical message of the novel, as they are “a powerful metaphor for the processes of control that order and run our societies” (Boon 75). Drug use should be a personal choice, as is implied by Burroughs. People make the best choices when they are fully informed and that is exactly what he strives to do in his work. This is, according to Marcus Boon, much more effective:
I believe, as Burroughs and others did, that the most promising solution to the ‘drug problem’ is neither negating or affirming drugs, but learning to discriminate between different drugs through unbiased studies of how human beings interact with them, and, at a deeper level, opening up new realms of excess so that drugs no longer carry the whole weight of our legitimate desire to be high. (Boon 13)
However, thirty years later, most of the so-called recreational drugs - in opposition to prescription drugs - are still illegal and people are insufficiently and correctly informed about the risks and perks of drug use. Burroughs informative voice has been overshadowed by the sensational aspects of his writing although his message was instructive and useful for policymakers and the public in general. A last feature of the references to drugs in Naked Lunch in particular, and in Beat literature in general, is their symbolic meaning. Although addicts are not necessarily depicted in a romantic way, the writers of the Beat Generation included junkies in “their outsider mythology” (Boon 75). Drug users let go of control by taking drugs, which goes against the 1950s’ mentality that is focused around control:
For all the myriad ways the Beats’ obvious transgression from and subversion of convention can be registered – an explicit queerness, radical politics or iconoclastic, idiosyncratic otherness – one of the most evident and consistent surely has to be the major role drugs played in their life and work. (McCormick 367)
In short, Burroughs’ depiction of drug use is both a symbol of rebellion against the conventions of the fifties and a metaphor for individuality and freedom of choice, be it
39 in an informed way. Burroughs’ personal attitude and preferences towards certain drugs and drug use in general are also revealed by his portrayal of drug addicts and drug use.
3.5. Sex in Naked Lunch Naked Lunch is a sexually explicit novel and this caused a huge controversy when it was first released. Even more controversial was the fact that the majority of the sexual interactions are between men. In the 1950s, the US, just like the rest of the world, was still highly homophobic: “America was hardly prepared to admit that homosexuality might be anything other than a form of insanity” (Gilmore 235). Homosexuality is an important theme in many works by the Beat Generation and Naked Lunch is no exception. However, homosexuality was already an important topic in Burroughs’ work before Naked Lunch. In Queer (finished in 1952 but only published in 1985) Burroughs depicts homosexual desire, and in this novel, “homosexuality becomes politicized,” since it contains explicit comments on politics, in contrast with Junky (1953) (Harris “Can You See a Virus?” 260). Naked Lunch contains many illustrations of hatred and aggression towards homosexuals. For example: “All matriarchies anti-homosexual, conformist and prosaic. Find yourself in a matriarchy walk don’t run to the nearest frontier. If you run, some frustrate latent queer cop will likely shoot you” (NL 25). Oppressing homosexuality leads to frustrations of the gay population who have to hide their sexual identity and are ashamed of it. Hence Burroughs argues against the oppression of queerness as it might cause negative reactions and consequences. The novel portrays a lot of scenes in which disrespect towards homosexuals is manifested. “Fags” are thrown on the floor and pissed on, and in Annexia, one of the utopian states described in the novel, houses are raided in search for covert homosexuals: “Many a latent homosexual was carried out in a straightjacket when they planted Vaseline in his ass. Or they pounce on any object. A pen wiper or a shoe tree” (NL 113; 21). Clearly, an inhumane way of treating perfectly normal people. At one point during “Dr. Berger’s Mental Hour” a “cured homosexual” is brought in for observation. This scene mocks the idea that homosexuality is a disease, and consequently something
40 that can be cured.16 This perspective was characteristic of how most people perceived homosexuality during the 1950s. This issue is touched upon again later in the novel when a character called Carl Peterson is required to visit Dr. Benway for an examination of his sexual preference. Dr. Benway describes what he calls “sexual deviation” as “a misfortune … a sickness […]” (NL 157). Peterson has to perform vague tests, one of which consists of him having to choose a picture of a girl he finds attractive. After the test, Dr. Benway admits that some of the girls are actually boys in drag and when men chose one of these, the conclusion of the test points in the direction of homosexual tendencies. Not only does Burroughs reflect the general view on homosexuality in the 1950s, he also reveals that these opinions are based on vague assumptions and prejudices. As said, the majority of the explicit scenes in Naked Lunch are of a homosexual nature. These scenes are extremely graphic and could be shocking for people who oppose gay sexuality:
Ali puts his hands behind the boy’s knees, push his legs over his head. Spit on his cock. The other sighs deeply as Ali slides his cock in. The mouths grind together smearing blood. Sharp musty odor of penetrated rectum. (NL 65)
Yet, by confronting his readers with homosexuality on so many occasions and in this extreme way, Burroughs actually wants his readers to get used to this form of sexuality, and to sexual activities in general. As said, the 1950s were conservative when it came to sex. However, research has revealed that while this behavior was not accepted, nearly 50 percent of American women had premarital sex and 37 percent of American men had had a homosexual experience (Norton et al. 776). Burroughs criticizes the conservative attitude and hypocrisy towards sex and presents many characters participating in so-called unacceptable behavior. Naked Lunch features some sexual activities that, even though not at all uncommon, are generally considered unusual, extreme or kinky. At one point, Burroughs describes the act of rimming, i.e. the oral pleasuring of an anus: “She pushes his cheeks apart, leans down and begins licking the anus, moving her head in a slow circle. She pushes at the sides of the asshole, licking deeper and deeper” (NL 76). The woman eventually puts on a strap-on
16 In the same scene, a “cured writer” is also brought in; a critique of conventions related to writers in the Fifties.
41 and starts pegging the man: “She greases the dingus, shoves the boy’s legs over his head and works it up his ass with a series of corkscrew movements o her fluid hips” (NL 78).17 Considering that this novel was published in 1959, when most people still had conservative views towards sex, it is quite remarkable that Burroughs describes a sexual act in which a woman takes on the dominant position and penetrates a man’s anus. Actually, in this scene Burroughs reverses the traditional roles that were attributed to women and men during sexual interaction and also shows that women can have certain sexual desires that go further than the missionary position.18 The idea that a woman would play the lead here and a man would agree to it is generally viewed as emasculating, and both attitudes were regarded just as scandalous. In adding this scene to the novel, Burroughs utters his view on gender conventions and on both female and male sexuality. A second example of this is a sex scene in which Mary, again, takes on the dominant position in a sexual activity: “‘No, let me.’ She locks her hands behind Johnny’s buttocks, puts her forehead against him, smiling into his eyes she moves back, pulling him off the platform into space” and “Johnny’s cock springs up and Mary guides it up her cunt […]” (NL 82). Clearly she is taking control of the situation, which contrasts with the 1950s conventional perception of women as obedient housewives. In fact, Burroughs really messes with the borders between the male and female gender, and not only in sexual situations since at one point in the novel he stages a couple of people who dress up as women, and transvestites appear in a lot of scenes. All these characters blur the gender boundary that was still very strong in the 1950s and as a matter fact, still is today. The sexual activities between Mark, Johnny and Mary, lead to graphic sexual violence. Mary first “bites away Johnny’s lips and nose and sucks out his eyes with a pop,” and eventually she is hanged by Mark (NL 82). Sexual humiliation occurs often in the novel. Sometimes people willingly undergo sexual humiliation in Naked Lunch, but this is not always the case. Sex is a powerful ‘tool’ to express power over
17 Pegging is a sexual act in which a woman penetrates the anus of a man with a strap-on, which is a dildo attached to a harness that can worn either by a woman or a man. 18 Jack Kerouac wrote an interesting passage on the female orgasm in The Subterraneans (1958), a short story about his interracial relationship with Mardou Fox: [B]esides which, Mardou did not gain orgasm from normal copulation and only after awhile from stimulation as applied by myself (an old trick that I learned with a previous frigid wife) so it wasn’t great of me to make her come but as she finally only yesterday said ‘You’re doing this just to give me the pleasure of coming, you’re so kind,’ which was a statement suddenly hard for either of us to believe […]” (Kerouac 41). A striking passage that hints at how little was known about female sexuality.
42 somebody. Dr. Benway uses sexual humiliation when interrogating people: “Nakedness, stimulation with aphrodisiacs, constant supervision to embarrass subject and prevent relief of masturbation (erections during sleep automatically turn on an enormous vibrating electric buzzer that throws the subject out of bed into cold water, thus reducing the incidence of wet dreams to a minimum” (NL 24). Likewise, sexual abuse and rape are routinely presented in Naked Lunch, implying oppressing and suffocating societies produces frustrated citizens that lose all self-control. What is striking, is that many of the cases of sexual abuse involve young boys. Dr. Benway abuses boys himself: “I recall this one kid, I condition him to shit at sight of me. Then I wash his ass and screw him. It was real tasty. And he was a lovely fellah too. And sometimes a subject will burst into boyish tears because he can’t keep from ejaculate when you screw him” (NL 25). Another instance of child molestation is the following: “‘Tonight we make it all the way.’ ‘No, no!’ screams the boy. ‘Yes. Yes” (NL 63). The novel also contains some blunt utterances that minimize the molesting of children: “The age of consent is when they learn to talk” and “May all your troubles be little ones as one child molester say to the other” (NL 118). All these instances of sexual violence are not without meaning. According to Keith M. Booker, sexual violence in Naked Lunch “functions as a metaphor for the dynamic of domination and submission that informs society as a whole” (“Guide” 102). In other words, sexual overpowering symbolizes the overpowering of citizens by society, and corrupt political instances. Burroughs might also imply, as I suggested before, that the sexual oppression typical of the 1950s can lead to frustrated people acting out on their desires. “[…] Burroughs suggests that the human subject and the political reality were disintegrating under extreme pressures” (Bradbury 195). Sexual taboos result in excessive behavior. People will behave like animals, as many characters in Naked Lunch lost all of their inhibitions: “A horde of lust-mad American women rush in. […] They scream and yip and howl, leap on the guests like bitch dogs in heat with rabies” (NL 69). During sex someone screams “like a bird” (NL 79). Bestial and obscene behavior is unleashed as these people are not able to control their sexual desires any longer. Another taboo Burroughs briefly touches upon is pedophilia, which should not be confused with child molestation:
The French school is opposite my window and I dig the boys with my eight-power field glasses … So close I could reach out and touch them … They wear shorts … I
43 can see the goose pimples on their legs in the cold spring morning … I project myself out through the glasses and across the street, a ghost in the morning sunlight, torn with disembodied lust. (NL 50)
This scene shows that the narrator has a strong desire to be intimate with the boys he watches from his window. However, he does not seem to act out this urge. Even though Burroughs does not to argue pedophiles should be able to act out their sexual desires, he does want to make clear that society oppresses individual choice and that this is not without emotional impact. Naked Lunch is a collection of sexual taboos aiming at different objectives: to shock people, to confront them with hypocrisy and to challenge the negative attitudes towards sex and sexuality. The themes of sexuality and drugs in Naked Lunch highly reflect Burroughs’ views on society and authority. He absolutely dreads any form of control, and, as John Tytell puts it: “Nowhere was the fear of institutional power more pronounced than in the nightmarish collage of Naked Lunch” (59). Naked Lunch is also an attack on 1950s middle class values regarding sex and drug use (O’Donnel 14). Burroughs reveals all the horrors hiding behind masks of civilization and convention. By confronting his readers with graphic scenes and in questioning conventions and boundaries, Burroughs makes “people aware of the true criminality of our times,” as stated by himself (qtd. in MacAdams 172). Although his novel is shocking and depressing at the same time, Burroughs’ view is not pessimistic at all. In fact, he believes that social and political problems can be resolved: “Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus. The Human Virus can now be isolated and treated” (NL 141).
44 4. Case Study 2: Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho More than thirty years after the publishing of Naked Lunch, Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho was published in 1991. And even though Joe Cadagin thought that: “(...) if a work as obscene and explicit as Naked Lunch could be published, then practically anything could,” Ellis’s novel caused a huge scandal as well. Once again, the pages are filled with sexual excesses, drugs and violence. Before analyzing the specific meaning of sex and drugs in American Psycho, I will discuss its more explicit comments on society and elaborate on the narratological and formal characteristics of postmodernism and satire that it contains.
4.1. American Psycho and Society American Psycho contains less explicit criticism than Naked Lunch. Nevertheless there are some clear comments uttered on certain aspects of the 1980s via the interactions of the characters and through their conversations. Ellis' major accusation is against yuppies - young urban professionals - and more specifically against their self-absorbed superficial character, underlined by their obsession with appearance, job-hopping and fortune and the lack of meaning in their lives. Physical appearance is extremely important for the female and male yuppies in American Psycho. They spend outrageous amounts on beauty products, tanning salons, gym membership, beauty treatments and clothes; wearing expensive labels and buying designer items is the norm. This obsession with appearance is reflected by Bateman’s uncountable descriptions of what people are wearing:
She isn’t wearing the Karl Lagerfeld suit I expected, but she looks pretty decent anyway: a silk gazar blouse with rhinestone cuff links by Louis Dell’Olio and a pair of embroidered velvet pants from Saks, crystal earrings by Wendy Gell for Anne Klein and gold sling-back pumps. (AP 77)
The first thing American Psycho’s main character, Patrick Bateman, notices about people is what they are wearing, and he also judges them by this. If they wear the wrong tie, he does not deem them worthy of his attention. In the Reagan Era, to ooze success was much more important than being actually happy and genuine, which is definitely reflected in American Psycho. Feelings do not matter, as long as you look good,
45 or as Bateman puts it: “I look sharp but my stomach is doing flip-flops, my brain is churning” (AP 81). The yuppies' obsession with appearance is so extreme that it is the only thing they really care about. Because of their sole occupation with physical appearance, they lead extremely empty lives. This is reflected in their superficial conversations, detailed comparisons of similar business cards and more. Ellis also highlights the class differences of the 1980s. As was previously explained, the class difference increased during the eighties, partly because Reagan did not believe in social security, and this social issue is reflected in American Psycho. The majority of the novel’s characters belong to the upper class, and they all come from rich backgrounds. They are oblivious about the fact that not everyone is as fortunate as they are and their conviction is that being poor is a matter of choice. The novel also portrays the extreme opposite of these ‘rich kids’, namely homeless people. Bateman and his friends frequently encounter 'bums' on the streets and their reactions towards them reveals their perceived superiority and their lack of empathy whatsoever. The bums of New York City are present from the beginning of the novel, where Tim Price, one of Bateman’s friends, counts the number of bums they pass during their taxi ride. Price is particularly cruel towards homeless people. When discussing a woman who chooses to live on the streets, he exclaims: “[A]nd we have a mayor who won’t listen to her, a mayor who won’t let the bitch have her way – Holy Christ – let the fucking bitch freeze to death …” (AP 6). Their disapproval of homeless people is also revealed through their interactions with them: “I wave to a beggar on the corner of Forty-ninth and Eighth then give him the finger” (AP 94). Moreover, Bateman and his friends often play nasty games with the bums they meet in the streets: [V]an Patten waves a crisp one-dollar bill in front of the homeless bum’s face, which momentarily lights up, then Van Patten pockets it as we’re whisked into the club” (AP 52). Bateman calls this game: “the tease-the-bum-with-a-dollar trick” (AP 113). Ellis also tackles the issues of sexism and racism. Firstly, while the men in the novel are mostly judged by their appearance, the women are judged solely on this aspect. If a girl is not a “hardbody” or a “bimbo” (a term used by Bateman and his friends to describe sexy women), she is not even worth mentioning. Every physical detail matters to these men:
46 While the hardbody stands there we check her out, and though her knees do support long, tan legs, I can’t help noticing that one knee is, admittedly, bigger than the other one. The left knee is knobbier, almost imperceptibly thicker than the right knee and this unnoticeable flaw now seems overwhelming and we all lose interest. (AP 48)
One minor physical ‘imperfection’ puts the men off and they resume their meaningless conversation. Without exception, the men cheat on their girlfriends and do not seem to show any love or genuine affection towards them. Even though the women are mostly just as superficial, there are a couple of instances where they act a little less shallow. Evelyn, for example, who cries over her lousy food presentation - some expensive sushi - at least has friends that are more artistic and different than Bateman and his friends. Another important female character is Jean, Bateman’s secretary, who has actual dreams about the meaning of her life and a different mentality than the models with whom Bateman usually interacts. Jean also confuses him about his feelings and who he is or can be. Ellis implies that these women do not deserve the disrespect they are getting from the men. The aspect of misogyny will be further treated in 4.5. Secondly, though it is not a major theme in the novel, there are a number of instances of racism, reflecting the attitude of white people towards people of color in the Eighties in an urban environment. Bateman and co. tell racist jokes to each other, and are not ashamed to insult black people: “Here’s a tip: get a real job, you dumb fucking nigger“ (AP 212). Homophobia is similarly presented in the novel, but I will elaborate on that when discussing sexuality in 4.5. In short, Ellis criticizes discrimination based on class, gender, race and sexual preference; he attacks the disrespect of existing minorities. A final aspect of the Reagan Era that Ellis critiques is the passive character of citizens towards social and political issues. Bateman, for example, is fully aware of the many issues occurring during the 1980s. In the beginning of the novel, he discusses all the important issues in America that need to be dealt with:
We have to ensure that America is a respected world power. Now that’s not to belittle our domestic problems, which are equally important, if not more. Better and more affordable long-term care for the elderly, control and find a cure for the AIDS epidemic, clean up environmental damage from toxic waste and pollution, improve
47 the quality of primary and secondary education, strengthen laws to crack down on crime and illegal drugs. (AP 15)
He also addresses social issues, and urges that the homeless need to be supported, racial discrimination opposed, women’s rights enforced. Incredibly hypocritical of him, considering he constantly disrespects bums, black people and women. Moreover, he concludes his speech by saying: “Most importantly we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people” (16). As Young states: “Patrick doesn’t seem to notice that his speech is nonsensical” (97). Through Bateman’s monologue, Ellis presents some of the most important social issues of the 1980s and conveys the attitude of the privileged people towards these issues. Nobody, not even Bateman, actually cares for these problems. Even when Bateman has an epiphany (“[I]t did not occur to me, ever, that people were good or that a man was capable of change or that the world could be a better place through one’s taking pleasure in a feeling or a look or a gesture, of receiving another person’s love and kindness” (AP 375)), he remains passive and does not take any action to make a change. Ignoring and pretending is easier than trying to make a change, perfectly reflecting the Reagan politics and era.
4.2. Postmodern Aspects in American Psycho Tim Woods argues that Less Than Zero (1985), by Bret Easton Ellis, and Bright Lights, Big City (1984), by Jay McInerney, are “not so much postmodern novels as novels about postmodern existence” (76). And while Less than Zero is not fully a postmodern novel on a formal and narratological level, American Psycho truly is. The novel contains some of the most important characteristics of postmodern fiction and leaves the reader confused and with more questions than answers. Yet Woods fails to mention American Psycho when listing postmodern fiction published after the 1980s. Elizabeth Young on the other hand, argues that American Psycho is “a sophisticated high postmodern text” (121). An aspect Young emphasizes is that Bateman is an unreliable narrator. He often lies to his friends, his girlfriend, his colleagues, and probably also to the reader. He even that states he has “perfected [his] fake response to a degree where it’s so natural sounding that no one notices” (AP 156). Bateman also appears to hallucinate
48 frequently, a result of his extensive drug abuse, as he admits at one point: “I think I was hallucinating while watching it. I don’t know. I can’t be sure. I don’t remember” (AP 65). What makes him even less trustworthy is that he never seems sure about anything, as he mentions in the previous quote. This uncertainty combined with his obnoxious behavior makes him quite unreliable. Moreover, Bateman makes mistakes in his narration. Mim Udovitch pointed out that he often misattributes pop songs, for example, “Be my Baby” is not attributed to the Ronettes, but to the Crystals (Young 107). Postmodern novels are often characterized by different narrating instances, as was the case with Naked Lunch, and while American Psycho is not a novel with multiple narrators, there is one instance in the novel’s narration that deserves attention. In the chapter “Chase, Manhattan” the narration switches from the first person to the third person: “[N]ext to a karaoke restaurant called Lotus Blossom I’ve been to with Japanese clients, the cab rolling over fruit stands, smashing through a wall of glass, the body of a cashier thudding across the hood, Patrick tries to put the in reverse but nothing happens […]” (AP 349). This part obviously reflects the climax of Bateman’s insanity and is the ultimate proof that many parts of the novel are merely fantasies. Bateman is so lost in his own mind that his narration becomes a full-out action movie. This particular sequence also emphasizes that there are no certainties and authorial voices are not necessarily reliable. The main character's unreliability contributes to the confusion of what's real and not. In other words, the author, Ellis, intentionally blurs the distinction between fact and fiction. It is unsure what actually took place in the plot of the novel and what was all just part of Bateman’s imagination. Bateman states this himself: “‘Sometimes, Jean,’ I explain, ‘the lines separating appearance – what you see – and reality – what you don’t – become, well, blurred’” (AP 378). Ellis breaks this boundary on other levels as well. Firstly, he mixes the fictional world of Bateman and the other characters with elements of the reality of the 1980s and his own references and experiences. Bateman is obsessed with Donald Trump, for example, and he bumps into the Tom Cruise in the elevator of the apartment building they share. American Psycho also contains references to the political world of the 1980s. President Reagan and Gorbachev are both mentioned, and there are many references to serial killers, like Ted Bundy and Eddie Gein. Besides that, the novel contains references to popular culture. Bateman goes to a U2 concert and reviews albums by Genesis, Whitney Houston and Huey Lewis and the News. Madonna’s music also frequently appears together with other popular music from that era. The brands that
49 appear in the novel are actual brands, such as Perrier, Evian, Emporio Armani, BMW, Clinique etc. And even some of the restaurants and clubs that appear in the novel are part of Ellis' real world. A second way in which Ellis blurs the distinction between fact and fiction is through intertextual references that are metafictional. The very first line of American Psycho is an intertext: “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE,” which refers to Dante’s Inferno (Huys 36). Some of the characters he presents, already appeared in other novels. Allison Poole, for example, with whom Bateman apparently had a sexual encounter, and meets her again at a bar, is the protagonist of Jay McInerney’s Story of My Life (1988). Stash and Vanden, other minor characters, are references to respectively Jana Tamowitz’s Slaves of New York and Ellis’ Less Than Zero. Another reference to Ellis’ own work is Sean Bateman, Patrick’s brother, who was one of the main characters of his novel The Rules of Attraction (1987). Patrick Bateman has a short appearance in that novel as well, so in this sense American Psycho’s main character is actually an intertextual reference. These intertexts emphasize, as Elizabeth Young also argues, the fictionality of Bateman’s character (108). The combination of the references to the real world and real people with these references to fictional people ensures a perfect blurring of fact and fiction. These two worlds collide into one, raising questions about what is fictional or factual, and about its relevance within the context of fiction. A final relevant intertext is the musical Les Misérables. Posters are all around Manhattan, characters hum songs from the musical and they talk about it. The implication of this reference is that the actual miserable people are the yuppies. Yet they are not poor as the miserable characters from the musical are. In this sense Ellis parodies Les Misérables, which allows him to raise questions about what it means to be miserable. Someone who has money and can buy anything he or she wants, can be utterly miserable as well. By parodying intertextual references, Hutcheon’s concept of historiographic metafiction is accomplished. Contrary to Naked Lunch, the reader of American Psycho is never directly addressed. However, the novel contains movie jargon, which is in a way similar to the stage directions in Naked Lunch I mentioned in 3.2. As Annesley notes: “[B]ateman’s narration incorporates phrases like ‘a slow dissolve,’ ‘smash cut,’ and ‘jump zoom’ (18). He also compares situations in his life to movies by saying that things happen “like a movie” (AP 114). C. Namwali Serpell claims the use of filmic language creates
50 a sense of unreality. And indeed, it makes the reader question the reality of what Bateman is narrating.19 Ellis also blurs the distinction between high and low literature. A lot of controversy arose when American Psycho was first published as it contained many graphic scenes with sexual and violent elements, just like Naked Lunch. The sex scenes come straight out of porn movies, which I will discuss in 4.5, and the torture scenes are comparable to cheap slasher movies:
The fingers I haven’t nailed I try to bite off, almost succeeding on her left thumb which I manage to chew all the flesh off of, leaving the bone exposed, and then I Mace her, needlessly, once more. (AP 246)
Ellis caused a lot of controversy by including scenes like these in the novel. It is slightly strange though that these scenes caused such scandal, as the violence depicted was daily news in the popular media, as well then as it is now: “Much, much worse can easily be found in small press publications, in genre or in the past. Not to mention, of course, the success and sycophancy surrounding psychotics and killers in films and television,” as asserted by Young. She claims it is the combination of the explicit sexual violence with “Ellis’s status as a ‘serious’ novelist […]” that caused such a stir (92). In other words, what shocked people was the combination of low and high literature. Furthermore, the graphic scenes are alternated with parts similar in form and structure, but the complete opposite content-wise. For example, the descriptions of people’s clothing or of technological items:
A multidisc CD player by Sony, the MDP-700, which spins both audios and videos – anything from three-inch digital audio singles to twelve-inch video discs. It contains a still-frame slowmotion multispeed visual/audio laser that incorporates four-times-over sampling and a dual-motor system that helps ensure consistent disc rotation while the disc-protect system helps prevent the discs from warping. (AP 306)
This extremely detailed description is reminiscent of a catalogue for an audio store. What is confusing, as I already implied, is that the graphic descriptions of sex and violence are actually as ‘catalogical’ as the descriptions of clothes, food, furniture and
19 In his following novel, Glamorana (1999), Ellis takes this aspect even further.
51 music. By blurring the boundary between high and low literature, Ellis questions our perception of sexual violence. Many people have become desensitized to violence, which is what he tries to put across by presenting his readers with an unexpectedly extreme amount of it (Young 92). Finally, it must have been clear already from the examples above that American Psycho combines different genres and forms of literature. The novel is a music magazine, a restaurant guide, a porn movie, a snuff film, a detective story and an action movie all at once. Similarly, Bateman’s speech is a mixture of “the language of fashion, business, music reviews, and stories of serial killers” (Serpell 49). Ellis parodies all these genres in his novel. He takes their characteristics to another level and plays with their conventions. The sex scenes changing into disgusting acts of torture, for example, or the fact that Bateman is never caught for the crimes he commits, even though a professional detective interrogates him at one point. Carl Tighe claims that his monologue, which was discussed before, is also a parody, namely of Ronald Reagan’s speeches: “It starts out in mouthing liberal platitudes that few can object to, and then proceeds fairly smartly to an opposite and self-contradictory right-wing position” (Tighe 112). Again, Ellis achieves historiographic metafiction. Some final aspects of postmodernism in American Psycho are fragmentation and the lack of plot and characterization. Bateman’s narrative collapses into meaningless fragments of obsessions and descriptions (Young 108). Also, Young notes that the chapters are not sequential. Bateman often skips days or even weeks: “The seemless monotone of Patrick’s life, which is indeed positively robotic in its round of office, restaurant, gym and bed, is subtly undermined and fragmented by continual narrative jump-cuts” (Young 101). Sometimes Bateman begins his narration in mid-sentence, or he leaves sentences unfinished: “Eastern Airlines has created its Weekender Club which includes many Caribbean destinations and enables members to visit many places at sharply reduced prices which I know doesn’t matter but I still think people are going” is followed by a blank space and no full stop (AP 141). Likewise, American Psycho lacks a clear plot and characterization. The novel is based on patterns; the same actions and conversations happen over and over. Even the tortures and murders quickly become repetitive. The characters are also repetitive. They wear the same clothes and the same glasses, they are tanned and muscular, but moreover, they have no distinct personalities or particular interests. In other words, they all look the same,
52 they are interchangeable, and consequently they are constantly misrecognized. These are all aspects underlining the emptiness of the character’s vapid lives. American Psycho is without doubt a postmodern novel that uses postmodern techniques to reveal the reality of the Reagan Era. Ellis blurs boundaries between high and low literature and between fact and fiction to confront people with their perception of violence and of reality. The postmodern character of the novel underlines the critical message it contains.
4.3. Satirical Aspects in American Psycho While American Psycho is not a novel that sparked a revolution, it certainly attempts to reveal the reality behind the façade of wealth and happiness typical of the Reagan Era. As many critics noticed, American Psycho “serves as a social satire of the greedy, materialistic, consumer-crazy, spiritually empty eighties” (Huys 57). In the novel, Ellis takes the behavior of the yuppies to an extreme and in doing so, mocks it. Their conversations and daily activities are meaningless and bland in such a way that it becomes utterly ridiculous. At one point, a number of people, including Bateman, are having a conversation about bottled water and the differences between certain brands. They discuss for instance, the difference between spring water, natural water and sparkling water, and Courtney confesses she “was afraid to try Pellegrino for the first time […] but once I did, it was … fine” (AP 252). This topic itself is not necessarily ridiculous, since it is ongoing at many lunch and dinner tables. However the characters take their conversation very seriously and explain the differences in taste and production processes as if they were real connaiseurs of water. In the end, for most people, it is just water, but for them even water is a status symbol. The yuppies in American Psycho are occupied with meaningless conversations about superficial topics, yet they are convinced that they are really interesting and culturally engaged. Likewise Bateman’s obsession with clothes, brands and even sex and violence is also extreme. Ellis reflects the lifestyle and mentality of yuppies but he takes it to another level. Another element of satire mentioned above is open endings. American Psycho not only lacks a plot, it also lacks a closed ending. Moreover, the final words are: “THIS IS NOT AN EXIT” and these words imply that there will not be a resolution
53 (399). This implies the novel is part of a cycle that will be repeated over and over again. It is not Ellis’s goal to provide an answer to the issues criticized in the novel; pointing out the hypocrisy and emptiness of this part of society is more important. Also, by implying the never-ending cycle, Ellis emphasizes the passiveness of the characters, which I pointed out as another aspect of society he comments on. As explained, it is crucial for a satire that what is commented on is apparent. Therefore, clear referents in the real world are a necessity. American Psycho contains numerous references to the 1980s. Singers, musicians, fashion labels, brands, serial killers and politicians frequently occur in the novel and certain settings, such as the restaurants and clubs, exist in reality as well. It should be noted, however, that these exact settings are not what Ellis comments on. He does not ridicule Donald Trump, Madonna, or Tunnel, a famous club. Instead, he ridicules the obsession of his characters with these people and places. Bateman’s obsession with Dorsia, a restaurant, is for instance constantly ridiculed. Ellis also based the violent scenes in American Psycho on actual crimes. He read books on serial killers and police and FBI reports for inspiration (Huys 70). Again, he took these examples to the next level and created murder scenes that are so exaggerated, they are so unrealistic and almost become comical. In this sense, even the crime scenes are satirized. The result is a caricature of 1980s America highlighting that the complete opposite of what is presented in the novel could be the norm. Yet Ellis did not just strive to criticize the Eighties, his caricature serves as an example for a bigger society not related to time or place. As Ellis says in an interview: “Patrick Bateman can exist at anytime. […] He is just an example of the constantness of evil” (Tighe 115).
4.4. Drug Use in American Psycho Similar to Beat literature, Blank fiction contains a large amount of drugs and drug use. According to James Annesley, drugs in Blank fiction either signal a desire of “freedom or autonomy” or are “a symbol of identification rather than rebellion” (131). He puts drug use in American Psycho in the second group.20 In the following paragraphs, I will demonstrate how this categorization is not entirely correct.
20 Annesley names writers such as Evelyn Lau, Gary Indiana and Ray Shell, who write mainly about heroin and crack addictions, as authors who represent drugs to signal a desire for
54 “Drugs, Evelyn? Cocaine. Drugs. I want to do some cocaine tonight. Do you understand?” exclaims Patrick at his girlfriend’s Christmas party (AP 194). At that moment, he is clearly interested in a different kind of snow, and he drags Evelyn along searching for it. Like many middle and upper class people during the 1980s, Patrick is obsessed with cocaine. Cocaine is extracted from coca leaves that are put through a chemical process (Drugscope “Cocaine and Crack”). During World War I cocaine became a fashionable drug even replacing opiates in both artistic and bohemian circles and the criminal underworlds in Europe and America (Boon 185).21 However, the popularity of cocaine began to decline after amphetamines were developed in the 1920s and became legally available (Boon 196). At the beginning of the 1970s the use of cocaine increased again and Marcus Boon attributes the newfound popularity to the “appropriation of black pimp mythology by white rock musicians at the end of the sixties” (211). Up until then cocaine had been negatively associated with black pimps and prostitutes. Due to the influence of rock stars this bad reputation began to fade. Cocaine was used on a regular basis and it became an important substance for white middle-class people living in a self-centered society (Boon 212). Although the drug is often described as being not physically addictive, users can become emotionally dependent on it (Drugscope “Cocaine and Crack”). Heavy use of cocaine can even lead to hallucinations, which Bateman frequently experiences (ibid.).The drug’s effects are desirable for a lot of people as users of cocaine usually experience a great sense of confidence; feelings of anxiety, shyness and humbleness are temporarily repressed (Hellinga et al. 99). As described by Malcolm X, cocaine evokes “an illusion of supreme well-being, and a soaring over-confidence in both physical and mental ability” (Malcolm X qtd. in Boon 211). Although the price of the drug has declined throughout the years, cocaine is still associated with materialism and an expensive lifestyle, so the drug also emphasizes the social status and wealth of the user (Hellinga et al. 100). As said, Patrick Bateman loves cocaine. He never enters a club without the quest for it. He explicitly describes snorting coke only a couple of times, but cocaine is mentioned on several other occasions. For example, when Patrick is still hung over
freedom. His book Blank Fictions: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary American Novel contains a detailed discussion on drug representation in Blank fiction as a whole. 21 Strikingly, in some artistic circles cocaine, and drugs in general, were condemned. The Italian Futurists, who Marcus Boon rightly sees as obvious candidates for stimulants like cocaine with “their love of speed and machinery,” disapproved of it (189).
55 “from a coke binge” (AP 105). And from the way Bateman narrates about the drug it is clear he is a regular user. Before getting an arrangement with a coke dealer he is in “an edgy pre-coke state,” indicating he knows exactly what feelings he can expect. When he and Tim Price finally get the drug, they quickly notice they got less than the gram they paid for and, moreover, the coke is actually pretty weak. So again, he knows what to anticipate. Bateman uses cocaine for comfort and confidence. He is often anxious before scoring coke and reports feeling relieved and confident after taking it. Bateman needs cocaine in order to function somewhat normally in social situations. Without it he would be a nervous wreck. It is not a drug he takes to experiment with or for actual pleasure, but it is a necessity for him to survive in his superficial and materialistic circle. Furthermore, the drug is a status symbol that emphasizes his wealth and financial achievements; it “underlines his success and increases his sense of power” (Annesley 132). Ellis reflects people’s preoccupation with cocaine during the 1980s, as the use of this drug reached its peak during those years. He ponders about why people took this drug and not for reasons of mere experimentation or pleasure. Cocaine was (a)bused in order to function in a highly pressured society. The abuse of cocaine can furthermore be related to Ellis’ critique of the consuming society, as explained by James Annesley: “For Bateman, cocaine use provides what is, quite simply, just another excuse to consume conspicuously” (131). Patrick consumes expensive clothes, food, furniture, and expensive drugs. The characters of American Psycho are not only heavily dependent on cocaine, they are also addicted to prescription drugs. Many people use prescription drugs non- medically, which means they use these drugs since they have easy access to it and then take more than prescribed or take the drugs for a different reason than prescribed. The dangers of prescription drugs should not be underestimated since annually more deaths are caused by nonmedical prescription drug use than by heroin and cocaine abuse combined. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy even stated that the abuse of prescription drugs is “the Nation’s fastest growing drug problem” (NCADD “Fact Sheet” 1). The National Institute of Drug Abuse lists three classes of prescription drugs that are frequently abused by addicts. Namely, (1) opioids, medication used to treat pain, (2) central nervous system depressants used to treat anxiety and sleep deficiency, and (3) stimulants used to treat attention deficit
56 disorders and narcolepsy (ibid.). The medication abused by the characters in American Psycho mainly belongs to the second category. Xanax seems to be Bateman’s drug of choice and he often narrates about talking multiple doses a day. Xanax, or Alprazolam, is usually prescribed to people suffering from panic disorders or social anxiety. It is a very strong drug that should be taken in moderation and carefully supervised by a doctor. Bateman, however, is not a responsible user of Xanax. Near the end of the novel, when his sanity completely escalates, he even takes the medicine “half-hourly” (AP 345). Another tranquilizer Bateman regularly abuses is Valium. He takes sleep-inducing pills, like Halcion, and painkillers, like Nuprin, often as well. Moreover, he combines them with alcohol and cocaine, showing he is not at all concerned or conscious about taking his medication responsibly. Bateman’s drug abuse obviously has an impact on his mental state and it frequently causes him to hallucinate. He acknowledges the negative consequences of his excessive drug abuse: “[A]fter taking three Halcion (since my body has mutated and adapted to the drug it no longer causes sleep – it just seems to ward off total madness) […]” (AP 179). Even though the drug’s impact has diminished because of his abuse, he keeps taking it because he believes it has an effect on his sanity. Bateman is happy to pop whatever he can get his hands on, as long as it numbs his anxiety: “I’m taking Sominex by the hour since I’ve run out of Dalmane, but nothing really helps and soon even the box of Sominex is empty” (AP 343). He is fully aware of the high amount of medication he is taking, but he only cares about numbing his feelings: “I’m on a lot of Halcion at this point so the rat doesn’t bother me as much as, I suppose, it should” (AP 308). His inability to react like he normally would does not concern him it all. Patrick is comforted by the numbing effect of his drugs, and he is not the only one in the novel with this sentiment. Addict behavior it is. Almost everyone Patrick talks to abuses substances like alcohol, cocaine or prescription drugs. Even his mother, who resides at a nursing home, is “heavily sedated” (AP 365). The characters do not occasionally take these medications, but are constantly under influence. Bateman and his peers need to be sedated at all times or they cannot function at all; reality is unbearable when sober. By describing these heavily addicted people, and by exaggerating their drug use, Ellis shows just how nerve-wracking it could be to be a yuppie in New York during the eighties. The high amount of anti-depressants and sleep-inducing pills emphasize how terrible these
57 characters must feel. In order to survive in what is for them an unbearable society, they just increase their amounts of drugs. Bateman and his peers also use drugs, like cocaine, to underline their success and authority, and in this sense it is true that their drug use is a sign of wanting to “drop in,” or belong to a group, rather than drop out, as James Annesley argues. However, he did not look at the abuse of prescription drugs, which is not only mentioned significantly more in the novel than the use of cocaine, but also implies a clear unhappiness with the world the users live in. The characters in the novel want to escape their reality. For instance, when Patrick is having dinner with his girlfriend, Evelyn, she asks what to toast on. His response is: “Freedom?” (AP 331). Tim Price, Bateman’s best friend, also longs for freedom: “[P]rice suddenly stops walking, stares past Ted, who smiles knowingly when he spots Timothy, and Price gazes longingly at the tracks as if they suggest some kind of freedom, embody an escape that Price had been searching for …” (AP 55). Price later on disappears via these tracks, but apparently he went to rehab, the only way to temporarily escape the superficial world of the New York yuppies. They want to get out, but do not make an actual effort to do so. Instead, they drug themselves and move on. Their drug use reveals that behind the perfect picture of wealth, prosperity and 90 dollar pizzas, hides a sad image of depression, anxiety and fear.
4.5. Sex in American Psycho The number of explicit sex scenes in American Psycho is high and the novel has been heavily criticized for being pornographic and obscene (Baelo-Allué 108). The scenes are, however, meaningful and underline Bateman’s critique of the 1980s. Sex is never connected to any feeling of passion or enjoyment; the sex scenes are as uninspiring as mainstream porn:
Christie sits up and turns herself around and while still on top of Elizabeth presses her cunt into Elizabeth’s gasping face and soon, like in a movie, like animals, the two of them start feverishly licking and fingering each other’s cunt. (AP 288)
Not only does this scene sound like lesbian porn aimed at men, but Bateman also explicitly connects this scene to a movie, to a porn movie that is. Bateman frequently
58 rents porn movies, and it seems that his sex life is simply a reenactment of the porn he watches. Moreover, he acts like an actual director, as if he were directing a porn movie:
Then I have Christie lie on top of Elizabeth and make her suck and bite at Elizabeth’s full, swollen tits, which Elizabeth is also squeezing, and then I tell the two of them to kiss each other, hard, and Elizabeth takes the tongue that’s been licking at her own small, pink cunt into her mouth hungrily […] (my italics, AP 288)
He is fully in charge of what is his personal live porn film. The above fragment is only a small part of a long sexual encounter that actually seems quite unrealistic. Bateman would not only imagine his tortures and murders, but likewise the sex scenes could be merely a fantasy. Either way, Ellis shows how disconnected Bateman is from reality. The sex he has is either painfully dull (“Roughly I push my cock back into her and bring myself to an orgasm so weak as to almost nonexistent […]” (AP 105)) or it is too reminiscent of a porn fantasy to really believe he is having that kind of sex. In porn, “[M]en are not represented as having sex at all; rather, they are presented as having power” (Calvin Thomas qtd. in Schoene 391). For Bateman, sex is about performance and triumph. It does not matter whether he and his partners actually enjoy the activity and each other, what matters is how many times they have reached orgasms, how wet their vaginas are and how huge his penis is. In other words, Bateman’s obsession with conventional appearance and success continues in his sexual life. For example, he describes “sliding [his] dick gracefully into [Courtney’s] cunt” (AP 101). Bateman seems to be really proud of this sexual skill that does not mean anything at all. His perception of sex is so disconnected from reality that it becomes comical yet sad at the same time. Sex should be an opportunity to let go of all self- control and fully enjoy each other’s physicality, but Ellis shows that a society driven by success and performance negatively affects the intimate lives of people. Most of Bateman’s sexual encounters end in graphic murder scenes. He often drugs his victims before engaging in sexual activities with them, so he has planned his acts of murder beforehand. Serial killing is often sexually motivated. Berthold Schoene explains that sex can be experienced as emasculating; hence some men feel the need to assert their masculine authority (390). Notably, “the compulsive seriality of sexual murder identifies the killer also as a hysteric,” which implies that sexual
59 violence is a result of extreme confidence issues. This theory is applicable to American Psycho. Bateman has, undeniably, no confidence. He suffers from anxiety, is always nervous and, to him, life is an endless competition. In this sense, he is under a lot of pressure. Although he abuses drugs to deal with his anxiety, he also needs to abuse people on a regular basis. As Schoene argues:
Ellis provides us with a case study of postmodern male hysteria, intricately recording his protagonist’s increasing nervous implosion as he wards off imminent self- disintegration by violently pulling himself together and repeatedly – that is, serially – asserting himself over and against the other. (394)
James Annesley insists that violence has an important symbolic function in fiction in general and is more than a reflection of contemporary violent societies (Annesley 12). By presenting these images of extreme violence, Ellis reveals that society has become desensitized towards violence. The confrontation with images of extreme violence might shake them awake. Or as Norman Mailer puts it: “He will set out to shock the unshockable” (qtd. in Huys 69). Ellis also uses the sexual and violent images to reveal just how commodified American society was during the 1980s: “In American Psycho Ellis offers violence as a metaphor for the processes of commodification that are infiltrating, objectifying and cutting up the social body of late twentieth century America” (22). Society is focused on materialism and violence has also become a commodity. For Bateman murdering a girl equals buying a new stereo; they both fulfill his obsession with consuming. A fragment that illustrates this connection is the following:
In an attempt to understand these girls I’m filming their deaths. With Torri and Tiffany I use a Minox LX ultraminiature camera that takes a 9.5 mm film, has a 15mm f/3.5 lens, an exposure meter and a built in neutral density filter and sits on a tripod. (AP 304)
As Annesley concludes, Bateman is unable to differentiate between “his casual and abusive treatment of human life and a jargon-studded analysis of his electronic toys” (13). Whether he consumes people or inanimate objects does not matter to him, as long as he is consuming. This perception of violence reaches a climax when Bateman
60 tries to cook and eat a girl: [W]hile I grind bone and fat and flesh into patties, and though it does sporadically penetrate how unacceptable some of what I’m doing actually is, I just remind myself that this thing, this girl, this meat, is nothing, is shit […]” (AP 345). This scene not only expresses, according to Annesley, Bateman’s “violent lusts, but [articulates] a confused consumerism that has run out of control and exceeded all boundaries” (16). American Psycho presents sexual violence as a commodity, and sex can be considered the same way. Bateman consumes girls literally, by murdering them, but he also consumes them sexually. The violent images can be related to a critique of ‘the commodified currents of late twentieth-century American life” and the same counts for the sexual images (Annesley 38). Although Patrick kills men, usually bums, faggots and other men belonging to the lower ranks of life, the most violent and disturbing crimes are committed against women. In addition to torturing and murdering women, Bateman also admits to having raped some. Moreover, he does not take women seriously during conversations and he cheats numerous times on his girlfriend. Clearly, Bateman has no respect for women whatsoever. His misogynistic tendencies have been greatly criticized in the past and the book has even been referred to as a “how-to novel on the torture and dismemberment of women” (Freccero 50). However, many critics failed to see that American Psycho did not reflect Ellis’s view on women, but rather mirrors the reality of the 1980s in which misogyny was still omnipresent (Huys 72). In this sense, Ellis does not only confront readers with our desensitization violence, but with our blindness towards misogyny as well. His aim was not to encourage men to torture and kill women, but rather the opposite. One critic who grasped this message was Norman Mailer: “The female victims in American Psycho are tortured so hideously that men with the liveliest hostility toward women will, if still sane, draw back in horror […] It will repel more crimes than it will excite” (qtd. in Huys 77). While sexual violence and the materialistic perception of sex are the most important aspects of sexuality in American Psycho, there are two final elements I would like to discuss, namely, Bateman’s necrophilic tendencies and the depiction of homosexuality in the novel. On occasion, Bateman keeps bodies of his victims for a few days in his apartment. During this time he sometimes has sex with the dead body parts. Bateman engages in necrophilic homicide, which means that he murders people in
61 order to obtain a corpse for sexual purposes (Rosman et al. 154).22 But what is more interesting is what drives his necrophilic activities. A study by Jonathan P. Rosman and Phillip J. Resnick revealed the motivations behind necrophilian actions. Although, most of the necrophiles they studied had more than one motive, the most common one was “to posses an unresisting and unrejecting partner (68%)” (Rosman 158).23 And while Rosman and Resnick emphasize that not all necrophiles suffer from psychotic issues, as their motives can also be emotional and related to romantic feelings, Bateman’s necrophilic urges are most definitely related to power and control. Having a sexual partner that does not resist his advances is for him the ultimate proof of his dominance. Necrophilia is only a small element of American Psycho, but clearly reveals a lot about Bateman’s character. An important aspect of the Reagan Era was the AIDS epidemic. Interestingly it is only mentioned a few times in American Psycho and whenever characters discuss the disease they minimize its dangers. This simply goes to show that they feel superior and untouchable. They are rich hence they think the are resistant to a disease that is generally connected with minorities. The large number of AIDS victims was a significant low point in US history, but the crisis also intensified homophobia and condemnation of homoeroticism. Ellis touches upon these topics in his novels (Hendin 211). Gay people are not accepted within Bateman’s entourage. He frequently calls people faggots and one of his victims is a gay man with a sharpei. Bateman does not seem to kill this man because of his sexual orientation, but it is something he mocks. When his friend Luis Carruthers comes out and admits feelings for him, Bateman is not at ease, does not seem to know what to do. And when he passes by the Gay Pride Parade, he says the following; “I stood in front of Paul Smith and watched with a certain traumatized fascination, my mind reeling with the concept that a human being, a man, could feel pride over sodomizing another man […]” (AP 139). Patrick’s behavior towards women, black people, gay people and bums simply shows how these minorities were still severely disrespected. Although the previous years were characterized by social change, in many circles white men remained superior.
22 Two other categories of necrophilia are regular necrophilia (“the use of already dead bodies for sexual pleasure”) and necrophilic fantasty (“fantasizing about sexual activity with a corpse, without carrying out any necrophilic acts”) (Rosman et al. 154). 23 The other motivations they mention include reunion with a romantic partner (21%), conscious sexual attraction to corpses (15%) and attempt to gain self-esteem by the expression of power over a homicide victim (12%) (Rosman et al. 159).
62 In short, Ellis shows that the society of the 1980s was, in general, a sick society. Many social issues were left unresolved and people were pressured to fit it with a culture that focused on appearance and financial success. The result of this sick society is that people escaped into drugs, to feel some sort of release of pressure from society, to numb their emotional and individual feelings, to mask their true personalities and to gain confidence. The repressing of fears and anxieties could lead to sexual violence and perceptions or expectations about sex that were disconnected from reality.
63 Conclusion Despite the fact that Naked Lunch and American Psycho are two entirely different novels, they deal with social and political issues in a similar way. Williams S. Burroughs and Bret Easton Ellis express their critique on society on three levels: on an explicit level, on a formal and narratological level and on a thematical level. Sometimes these levels interact and support each other; at other times this is not the case. Burroughs and Ellis both include explicit, or more straightforward, critique in their novels. Burroughs comments on the United States of America and its "powerful drag" suffocating every citizen. He also expresses his disapproval of political systems like democracy. Ellis mainly comments on the yuppie culture that is superficial and only concerned with appearance and status. He also highlights some social issues of the 1980s, like racism, sexism and homophobia that were not resolved yet despite the efforts of the previous decades. On a formal and narratological level, Naked Lunch and American Psycho both contain elements of postmodernism. The novels question social standards and challenge social conventions. For Burroughs this was part of his attack on the middle class values of the 1950s that were centered on restraint and focused on the ordinary. Anyone who deviated from the norm was rejected. Burroughs challenges these strict rules. For Ellis, breaking boundaries mainly serves to reveal that what we see is not always what is real. Similarly to Burroughs’ criticism on the 1950s, Ellis attacks the 1980s that were characterized by trouble, fear and insecurities. Reagan's tactic to deal with contemporary issues was to pretend they did not exist. Just like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho pretends he is all right, while he actually is an anxious and depressed person. By challenging the boundary between fact and fiction, Ellis can get his point across. Naked Lunch contains elements of the dystopian novel further emphasizing Burroughs' critique on authorities that abuse their power. The novel is set in non- existing places where authoritarian governments exercise full control over their citizens. Science and politics are questioned and criticized by presenting them worse off than in reality. Burroughs defamiliarizes his audience, which enables him to provide them with insights into contemporary social and political issues. American Psycho, on the other hand, is a satirical novel and the satirical aspects mainly serve to emphasize Ellis' critique on the yuppie society, which he mocks in his
64 novel. He exaggerates the obsessions with appearance and the empty lives that characterize yuppie culture. The novel contains direct references to the 1980s so there is a clear connection with the reality that is mocked. The open ending of American Psycho reveals that Ellis did not intend to provide answers or real conclusions, but aims to question society and to challenge whatever it is that people consider normal. Thematically, sex and drugs are important topics in both works and their implications are significant. Burroughs attacks the attitude of the 1950s towards sex and sexuality. Homosexuality was not accepted, yet practiced by many men, and the gender standards influenced and oppressed female sexuality. Burroughs reacts to this by presenting numerous sexual interactions between men and by portraying women who manifest sexual self-confidence. According to the author sex is personal and people should be able to make their own choices with regards to their sexual lives. Burroughs also considers that controlling people's sexuality will lead to frustration and shame, and will finally result in excessive behavior and violence. Ellis draws a similar conclusion. In American Psycho, Bateman commits violent crimes because it is the only way for him to deal with his social anxiety and the constant pressure of society to fit in. The sexual scenes in Ellis’ novel also strongly argue against violence towards women, something a lot of readers and critics failed to comprehend. Drug use portrayed in Naked Lunch mainly serves to underline that people should be able to decide for themselves what they want to do or take, but they should be informed about the pros and cons of drug use. Burroughs warns his readers for addiction, but he does not try to shield them away from drugs. Again, taking drugs should be a personal choice. Drugs also symbolize rebellion in Naked Lunch, as drug users in the 1950s were considered outcasts who did not conform to the norm by letting go of control. In American Psycho drug use is not criticized, nor encouraged, in fact Ellis does not offer his view on drug use at all. Instead, the excessive drug scenes serve to show that a sick society pressures people to be something they are not and pushing them into drug abuse. They do not take drugs for a mind-blowing experience, like some in Naked Lunch do, but rather to keep functioning without becoming too insane. The characters in American Psycho need cocaine to feel confident, and they need prescription drugs to desensitize themselves. As a result, they are apathetic creatures with no individuality. Both novels emphasize that a society based on repression and conformity creates frustrated people that are ashamed for who they really are and escape into excessive,
65 sometimes violent, sexual behavior or extreme drug abuse. The aspects of society that William Burroughs and Bret Easton Ellis commented on and warned us against, are still harming our contemporary society. People are still ashamed of their sexuality and emotions, and society is still pressuring people into being something they are not. Nowadays, influenced by social media, people seem to put even more effort into creating a persona that does not compare to the real person at all. Drug use is also still a taboo for many people, even though it is done openly in many countries. However, this view of contemporary society may be a little too pessimistic. Currently, many American states are considering the legalization of marijuana, which might lead to constructive debates on other illegal drugs. Also, the issues of homophobia in countries like Russia and Oeganda are heavily criticized by other countries, in which homosexuality is a lot more acceptable. Analyzing themes of sex and drugs in more recent novels could be interesting, as they undoubtly will reveal a lot about the social developments related to sex, drugs and individuality. Although Naked Lunch and American Psycho have too often been dismissed as merely obscene novels, I hope to have shown they are complex in their approach of social critique and they are still very relevant today. It remains strange that these novels faced such hatred and critique when they were first published. Did critics and readers fail to read between the lines, or were they not ready to confront the truth about their generation? Will any generation ever be ready for the confrontation with the social and political issues defining their society?
66 Works cited Annesley, James. Black Fictions: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary American Novel. London: Pluto Press, 1998. Berger, Arthur Asa. The Portable Postmodernist. Walnut Creek (Calif.): AltaMira Press, 2003. Berger, Morroe. Real and Imagined Worls: The Novel and Social Science. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, 1977. Booker, M Keith. Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide. London: Greenwood Press, 1994. Booker, M Keith. The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism. London: Greenwood Press, 1994. Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern American Novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Burroughs, William. Naked Lunch: TheRestored Text. Ed. James Grauerholz & Barry Miles. London: Harper Perennial, 2010. Burroughs, William. Junky. London: Penguin, 2008. Cadagin, Joe. “Burroughs’s Naked Lunch helped strop away literary taboos” The Michigan Daily. 6 Sept. 2011. Coblenz, Michael. “Not for Entertainment Only: Fair Use, and Fiction as Social Commentary” UCLA Entertainment Law Review 16.02 (2009): 265-321. “Cocaine and Crack.” Drugscope. 2011. Web. 22 July 2014. Davis, Lennard J. Resisting novels: Ideology and Fiction. London: Methuen, 1987. Dewey, Joseph. Novels from Reagan’s America: A New Realism. Florida: University Press of Florida, 1999. Donelly, Ashley Minix. “Blank Power: The Social and Political Criticism of Blank Fiction and Cinema.” Diss. University of South Florida, 2008. Douglas, Ann. “The City Where the Beats Were Moved to Howl.” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George-Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 5-9 Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. London: Picador, 1991. “Fact Sheet Prescription Drug Abuse.” NCADD. N.d. Web. 22 July 2014. Freccero, Carla. “Historical Violence, Censorship, and the Serial Killer: The Case of American Psycho.” Diacritics 27.02 (1997): 44-58.
67 Finke, Nikki. “Literary Brat Pack – Bright Lights, Big Advances.” Los Angeles Times. 13 Sept. 1987. N. pag. Gilmore, Mikal. “Allen Ginsberg, 1926-1997.” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George -Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 22-26. Green, Jeremy. Late Postmodernism: American fiction at the Millenium. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Griffin, Dustin. Satire: A Critical Reintroduction. Lexington (Ky.): University Press of Kentucky, 1994. Harris, Oliver. William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination. Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003. Harris, Oliver. “Can You See a Virus?” Journal of American Studies. 33.02 (1999). 243-266. Hasset, Brian. “Abstract Expression: From Bird to Brando.” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George- Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 22-26. Hemmer, Kurt. “Political Outlaws: Beat Cowboys.” American Studies Journal. 50 (2007). No Pages. “Heroin Facts.” Drugpolicy. N.d. Web. 22 July 2014. Hicks, Granville. “Fiction and Social Criticism.” College English. 13.07 (1952). 355- 361. Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1989. Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York: Routledge, 1989. Huys, Jill. “Bret Easton Ellis American Psycho and its context.” Diss. Ugent, 1995. Jenkins, Philip. A History of the United States. 3rd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Kerouac, Jack. The Subterraneans. London: Penguin, 2001. Knight, Brenda. “Sisters, saints and Sibyls. Women and the Beat.” Women of the Beat Generation. The Writers, Artist and Muses at the Heart of a Revolution. Ed. Brenda Knight. Berkeley (Calif.): Conari Press, 1996. 1-6. Loewinsohn, Ron. “’Gentle Reader, I Fain Would Spare You This, but My Pen Hath Its Will like the Ancient Mariner’: Narrator(s) and Audience in William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch.” Contemporary Literature 39.4 (1998): 560-585.
68 MacAdams, Lewis. “William S. Burrougs (1914-1997).” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George- Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 171-173. Malpas, Simon. The Postmodern. London: Routledge, 2005. McCormick, Michael. “Beat Pharmacopoeia.” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George-Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 55-67. McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London: Methuen, 1987. Mikics, David. “Postmodern Fictions.” A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture. Ed. Josephine G. Hendin. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Mills, Nicolaus. “The culture of Triumph and the Spirit of the Times.” Culture in an Age of Money: The Legacy of the 1980s in America. Ed. Nicolaus Mills. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990. Moylan, Tom. Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. Boulder (Colo.): Westview Press, 2000. Norton, Mary Beth, et al. A People & A Nation: A History of the United States. 9th ed. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2012. O’Donnell, Patrick. The American Novel Now: Reading Contemporary American Fiction since 1980. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Petro, Peter. Modern Satire: Four Studies. Berlin: Mouton, 1982. “Prescription Drug Abuse.” WebMD. May 31 2012. Web. 22 July 2014. Rideout, Walter B. The Radical Novel of the United States 1900-1954: Some Interrelations of Literature and Society. New York: Columbia University Press,1992. Rosman, J. P & Resnick, P. J. "Sexual attraction to corpses: A psychiatric review of necrophilia" Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 17.02: 153–163. Schoene, Berthold. “Serial Masculinity: psychopathology and oedipal violence in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho.” Modern Fiction Studies 54.02 (2008): 378- 397. Serpell, C. Namwali. “Repetition and the Ethics of Suspended Reading in American Psycho.” Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 51.01 (2009): 47-73.
69 Swenson, John. “Beat Jazz: The Real Thing.” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George-Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 27-31. Tighe, Carl. Writing and Responsibility. London: Routledge, 2005. Tytell, John. “The Beat Generation and the Continuing American Revolution.” The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the Counterculture. Ed. Holly George-Warren. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 1999. 55-67. Woods, Tim. Beginning Postmodernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Yannella, Philip R. American literature in context after 1929. Chichester: Wiley- Blackwell, 2010. Young Elizabeth. “Introduction.” Shopping in Space: Essays on America’s Blank Generation Fiction. Ed. Elizabeth Young and Graham Caveny. New York: First Grove Press/Serpent’s Tail, 1994. Young, Elizabeth. “Children of the Revolution: Fiction takes to the Streets.” Shopping in Space: Essays on America’s Blank Generation Fiction. Ed. Elizabeth Young and Graham Caveny. New York: First Grove Press/Serpent’s Tail, 1994. Young, Elizabeth. “The Beast in the Jungle, the Figure in the Carpet.” In: Elizabeth Young and Graham Caveney. Shopping in space: Essays on America’s blank generation. New York: First Grove Press/Serpent’s Tail, 1994.
70