Character and satire in post-war fiction / Ian Gregson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gregson, Ian.

Series:

Continuum literary studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Character in literature.

Caricature in literature.

Physical Description:

181 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Continuum, [2006]

Summary:

This monograph analyses the use of caricature as one of the key strategies in narrative fiction since the war. Close analysis of some of the best-known postwar novelists including Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Angela Carter and Will Self, reveals how they use caricature to express postmodern conceptions of the self. In the process of moving away from the modernist focus on subjectivity, postmodern characterization has often drawn on a much older satirical tradition which includes Hogarth and Gillray in the visual arts, and Dryden, Pope, Swift and Dickens in literature. Its key images depict the human as reduced to the status of an object, an animal or a machine, or the human body as dismembered to represent the fragmentation of the human spirit. Gregson argues that this return to caricature is symptomatic of a satirical attitude to the self, which is particularly characteristic of contemporary culture.

Contents:

1 Subverting Racist Caricature: Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison 9

2 Joseph Heller's Allegories of Money 31

3 Philip Roth's Vulgar, Aggressive Clowning 55

4 Joyce Carol Oates's Political Anger 79

5 Muriel Spark's Puppets of Thwarted Authority 99

6 Magic Realism As Caricature: Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie 111

7 The Caricaturist As Celebrity: Martin Amis and Will Self 131

8 Caricature Versus Character: The Self As Cartoon 151.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [175]-178) and index.

ISBN:

0826487475

OCLC:

61441019