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The Significance of Sex and Drugs in William Burroughs' Naked Lunch

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The Significance of Sex and Drugs in William Burroughs' Naked Lunch 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
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