Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Bc. Antonín Zita “The Exterminator Does a Good Job:” The Discourse of Naked Lunch Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. 2011 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Bc. Antonín Zita Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my supervisor, doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr., for his valuable comments and suggestions during the writing of the thesis. I. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 II. Biography of William S. Burroughs ................................................................... 3 III. Discourse Analysis of Naked Lunch .................................................................. 9 III.A Introduction .................................................................................................... 9 III.B Narrative and Narrative Voices .................................................................... 13 III.C The Structure of the Discourse ..................................................................... 30 III.D The Treatment of Time and Setting ............................................................. 38 III.E: The Characters of Naked Lunch .................................................................. 56 III.F The Tone and Language of Naked Lunch ..................................................... 67 III.G Conclusion .................................................................................................... 91 IV. The Interpretations of Naked Lunch .............................................................. 94 IV.A Introduction .................................................................................................. 94 IV.B Naked Lunch as a Humorous Work .............................................................. 97 IV.C Naked Lunch as a Moral Metaphor ............................................................ 101 IV.D Naked Lunch and Literal Meaning ............................................................. 112 IV.E Naked Lunch as an Indeterminate Work .................................................... 122 IV.F Wising Up the Marks: A Commentary on the Discourse ........................... 128 V. Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 135 VI. Bibliography .................................................................................................... 139 VII. Résumé/Resumé ............................................................................................ 145 VII.A Résumé ..................................................................................................... 145 VII.B Resumé ...................................................................................................... 146 I. Introduction The aim of this thesis is to analyze the discourse of the book Naked Lunch by the American writer William S. Burroughs and to comment on the possible interpretations of the text. There are several reasons I have chosen to analyze Naked Lunch. First, William S. Burroughs was a part of the Beat Generation which is credited for challenging the social values of their time and experimenting with new forms of writing. Secondly, Burroughs himself was undoubtedly a highly influential figure, being a direct influence on numerous artists and it is Naked Lunch that is considered his most famous work. Thirdly, the last ten years have seen an increased interest in Burroughs which is reflected in the number of publications related to the author. Not only has the last decade seen the release of anniversary and/or revised editions of his early work, namely Junky, Queer, The Yage Letters and Naked Lunch, but also numerous critical and biographical writings on Burroughs and his work have been published, the most important being a collection of critical essays titled Naked Lunch@50 and William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, a study of the early texts and their genesis by Oliver Harris. In other words, these and other recent publications often unveil new facts and perspectives which in effect might lead to new interpretations. Lastly, the discourse of Naked Lunch is not only an interesting subject for a comprehensive analysis, but it also provides an insightful commentary on critical interpretations and the shortcomings of interpretations in general. To sum it up, I consider Naked Lunch more than worthy to be the subject of my thesis. Before I start the analysis, I will provide a brief biography of the author to secure a background for the discussed work. In the next section I will perform the analysis of the work‘s discourse that will provide the necessary information for the commentary on the text‘s critical interpretations. The analysis will take into account 1 several aspects of the work, namely its narrative voices, structure, handling of time and setting, treatment of characters, and the language used throughout the text and its overall effect on the discourse. The analysis will show that the work is highly indeterminate and it is often up to the reader to decide on an interpretation. Naturally, openness and indeterminacy is present in more or less every text; however, Naked Lunch is an extremely indeterminate—and therefore interesting—piece of writing. This section of the thesis will use several critical approaches to describe the various aspects of the work, the most prominent being the insights and thoughts of Roland Barthes, Franz Stanzel and Umberto Eco. An evaluation of the discourse as a whole will be also present in this section. The following part of my thesis will provide an overview of Naked Lunch interpretations by various literary scholars. However, it will not be a simple overview of past and present criticism as I will use the information obtained by the discourse while describing the various interpretations. Furthermore, I will evaluate each interpretation by using the results of the analysis and comparing them with the criticism in question. In other words, the interpretations will be assessed according to their actual understanding of the nature and mechanics of the discussed text. Moreover, the results will be contrasted with each other and a commentary on the interpretations of Naked Lunch will be made. This commentary will not only touch upon the issue of interpreting Naked Lunch but also on interpretation of a literary text in general and on the alternatives the work in question offers. 2 II. Biography of William S. Burroughs William S. Burroughs has had several monikers during his life: el hombre invisible, the godfather of Punk (Miles 1), literary outlaw (as in the title of Ted Morgan‘s biography); J.G. Ballard called him ―the greatest author in post-war America‖ (qtd. in Stevens 7) and Norman Mailer‘s blurb that Burroughs is the ―only living American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by a genius‖ appears on most of his books. Burroughs has been undoubtedly central to the Beat Generation, yet his classification as a Beat writer is not without difficulties: he differs from the other Beats in style and Burroughs himself did not consider himself a part of the literary movement (Harris, ―Burroughs‖ 31-32). Burroughs was certainly a controversial persona for the most part of his life: not only he was a homosexual and drug addict, but also talked and wrote about it openly and these experiences greatly influenced his writing. Due to the themes above and the often shocking nature of his writing, his writing was often condemned: a British tabloid once had a picture of Burroughs in a suit with the accompanying text saying ―he has the appearance of a Protestant minister or a banker, but actually he‘s very subversive, dedicated to subverting all decent values‖ (qtd. in Baker 118). Nevertheless, Burroughs had a significant impact on popular culture, perhaps even bigger than on literature: ―It was the idea of Burroughs that appealed, not the man [. .]. This Burroughs was the man who saw the abyss and came back to report on it‖ (Miles 1). Burroughs was born on 5 February 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, to a rather well- off family. Some of his relatives achieved fame during their lives: Burroughs was named after his grandfather who invented the adding machine and his uncle Ivy Lee was a pioneer in the then-beginning public relations—among his clients was IG Farben, the German firm that manufactured Zyklon B, which paid Ivy Lee to improve Hitler‘s 3 image in the United States in the 1930s (Baker 8). In 1932 he went to Harvard, where he majored in English Literature. During his Harvard years, he attended lectures on Shakespeare and took a course on Coleridge by John Livingston Lowes.1 His parents gave him as a graduating present a $200 monthly allowance and sent him to Europe. Burroughs briefly studied medicine in Vienna and there he also met Ilse Klapper, a Jewish woman that wanted to get out of Europe to escape the Nazis. In order to help her, Burroughs married her.2 The several years following his return to the United States were marked by his search for a purpose in life as well as reacting to a rather unexpected turn of events: he studied anthropology at Harvard, applied for the service in the OSS,3 then moved to New York where he briefly worked in advertisement only to be drafted after the Pearl Harbor attack into the