The place of memory in John Burnside’s the locust room

This article explores the interdisciplinary ecocriticism in John Burnside’s novel The Locust Room (2001). The article’s main focus will be on ecocriticism and psychoanalysis as a conceptual framework. Using ecocriticism, the concepts of dwelling and ecoconsciousness will be applied as ecocritical concepts to analyse the environmental nature depicted in the novel. On the other hand, the concept of anxiety will be utilized to explore the psychological anxious feelings of the novel’s protagonist, Paul. The protagonist’s psychological anxiety develops throughout the plot. The cause of his anxious sufferings is the male-rape phenomenon which is common at his university campus. To get rid of his anxiety, the protagonist tends to live in alienation to escape rape, and he decides to live in natural settings alone with animals and insects. Accordingly, the study follows a textual analysis of the environmental settings to argue nature as an exit for the protagonist’s anxiety. The interdisciplinary interconnection between ecocriticism and psychoanalysis will be elaborated by citing Cheryll Glotfelty’s concept of ecoconsciousness, Greg Garrard’s concept of dwelling, and Sigmund Freud’s concept of anxiety

Grotesque representations of deviant sexuality in Ian McEwan's selected short stories

Themes of sexuality, particularly in excessive and extraordinary forms, can readily merge into the grotesque to ameliorate their depiction and thematic impact. Ian McEwan’s early fiction best exemplifies such inclinations. The psychologically violent and excessive world of McEwan’s early fiction is basically conceived in the milieu of sex and through grotesque representations. In this relation, the present work selectively focuses on “Solid Geometry” from First Love, last Rites (1975) and “Reflections of a kept Ape” and “Dead as they Come” from In between the Sheets (1978) to illustrate the implication and range of the grotesque in McEwan’s short fiction. The selected stories are discussed for their portrayal of the grotesque, as represented through transgressive partnership and deviant sexuality. The portrayal of sexuality in McEwan’s early short fiction offers a variety of the grotesque types of narrative mingling the mode both with the fantastic and the caricature

The visible Flâneuse in Chan Ling Yap’s Where the Sunrise is Red

Malaysia’s historical image in literature has almost always been exotically depicted. In some parts of literary works, geographical and physical settings serve merely as a literary device. The overwhelming depictions of characters’ geographical movements and relationship with their cities in the novel, Where the Sunrise is Red sparks the current resurgence to explore the visibility of the female protagonists in terms of their representations in the public sphere. Thus, the extent to which their representations are central to the development of the narration is debatable and to understand this; we must take into consideration Baudelaire’s construction of European urban figure, flâneur, emphasising the female version, the flâneuse. Different locations in colonial Malaysia and England seem to be the manifold literary device with which Yap develops her plots, yet the focus will be only at the crucial public domain that invites stares, barriers, and perceptions through the eyes and feelings of the character. Besides emphasising the characterisation of the protagonist, this setting is also symbolic of the underlying themes in the novel. The various public spheres where the protagonist is physically and visibly connected depict the reconstruction of a flâneuse in Malaysia’s historical representation in literature. Hence, the objectives of this study involve identifying the role of the public sphere and elaborating how these settings serve as the platform for flâneuse’s visibility in the Asian context through characterisation, physical setting, and symbols in the text

How real is real: attitudes towards realism in selected post-war British fiction

Despite its apparent precision in meaning, realism as a once-held literary school of thought provokes controversies regarding its basic definition and the works attributed to it. This is particularly the case with the postmodern use of the term, most specifically in relation to fiction, with realism generally asserted as the traditional language of the genre. This paper is an attempt to discuss the implication and tenets of realism, its progress and changes, in selected works of post-war British fiction. Accordingly, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, and Ian McEwan’s Atonement are dealt with to trace realism within their respective modes of new realism, fantastic-grotesque and postmodern metafiction. Having survived the early twentieth century allure of modernism, realism has gradually evolved into a new identity capable of emerging in and mingling with new modes prevalent in postmodern fiction. Owing to the spirit of the time immediately following the Second World War and the particularities of different authors, the postmodern realism has gone beyond a mere portrayal of the objective world and is in demand of a refreshed understanding of the new outlooks contemporary realism has the potentiality to offer

Helicanus as 'a figure of truth, faith and loyalty' in Shakespeare's Pericles

Pericles has been the focus of most Shakespearean scholars, discussing issues ranging from the play’s narrative sources to the protagonist’s leadership qualities. But the present paper will center its arguments on Helicanus, the neglected servant character of the play. Although loyalty is assumed in master-servant relationships during the Renaissance, the paper provides evidence that corrupted practices within the Elizabethan ruling class and its subordinates overcomes the need to be loyal. Despite being surrounded by the prevailing temptation for power, Helicanus remained as an epitome of loyalty in his service towards his master, Pericles. The paper extracts examples from relevant scenes in the play depicting portrayals of loyalty displayed by this servant character towards Pericles. In short Helicanus’ loyalty becomes the fundamental drive which elevates Pericles’ status in the play. Therefore, the study aims to heighten the appreciation of Shakespeare’s Pericles through the understanding and emphasis of the significance of its dramatic servant characters

The paradox of the narrative event in John Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse"

This article explores, via a postmodern approach, how Barth dealt with the intricate relationship between postmodern fiction and its modern counterpart by constructing a subjective narrative event in his novella, "Lost in the Funhouse". It examines the transparent and correspondent representation of the narrative event as a category of Barthian critique of modern literary exhaustion, and how Barth appropriates remedial recycling for fictional conventions. This apocalyptic homogeneous narrative device involves a constant reciprocal examination of contemporary fiction and its possible future. It is carried out through mutual subversion and, ultimately, challenges the notion of inherited literary forms and their utilisation over time. As such, the whole narrative event is achieved via a self-reflexive trajectory and multifarious textual solipsism

Order in disorder: exploring chaos theory in the narrative structure of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club

Chaologists believe that our actions, albeit small, play prominent roles in shaping the reality which we live in. It is believed that within the chaotic nature of our world, there is a complex system in its randomness. Yet, these seemingly random events have organised patterns such as weather and natural events which may be constantly predicted but they never be completely predetermined. This is the basis of chaos theory which identifies and examines these unseen, disorderly pattern in our world. Similarly, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) tells the story of an unnamed narrator who is trapped in the seemingly disordered string of events. However, there is a point of equilibrium in the unnamed narrator’s life before it branches out into the disequilibrium caused by individuals who influence his string of decision when one reads into the text. By utilising main elements of chaos theory and Tzvetan Todorov’s narrative theory, this study explores the relationship between the strange attractors and the unnamed narrator’s string of decisions. Although the text is narrated in his jumbled train of thoughts, Fight Club’s narrative structure can be reconstructed to provide a clearer look on his gradual descent into chaos. As a result, this study shows that there is a parallelism between narratology and quantum physic theory and the possibility to incorporate them in analysing the narrative structure of literature

The grotesque body in Ian McEwan’s short stories

The subject matter and imagery prevalent in Ian McEwan’s early fiction are shockingly unpleasant and justifiably notorious for their portrayal of grotesqueries to the extent that their significance has been ignored or undermined compared to his later more successful works. In the present study, we discuss these grotesque representations and their implications in a number of his short stories from the two collections of In Between the Sheets (1975) and First Love, Last Rites (1978). Our discussion of the grotesque body in the aforementioned stories relies on a synthesis of Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of grotesque realism and John R. Clark’s view of the modern satiric grotesque, which involves grim laughter and degradation reinforced through scatological imagery. We thus argue that the loss of a communal and regenerative sense of human existence in the modern life style can explain the sadism, masochism, violence or fatality prevalent in contemporary fiction as exemplified in McEwan’s short stories

Coping with childhood trauma: the unnamed narrator's defense mechanisms in Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)

Neil Gaiman, a well-known British author, writes science fictions using various literary genres such as fantasy, horror and Norse mythology. Through the uses of various literary genres in his novels and short stories, Gaiman highlights the themes of childhood trauma and the character’s self-identity in The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013). In this paper, the main protagonist’s struggles in coping with adulthood are interpreted using repression and denial as his primary defense mechanisms. These psychoanalytic concepts are believed to be means of ego defense to dismiss the unnamed male character’s childhood trauma. The character also undergoes repression and denial as the result of his inability to cope with his painful experiences during his childhood. In order to move on with his life, the unnamed character chooses to imagine and immerse himself into fantasy to lessen his painful experiences of the unpleasant incidents by internalizing his memories and dismiss them via repression as well denial. Hence, this paper argues that the concepts of repression and denial, as defense mechanisms, help the unnamed male character to cope with negative situations, which threatens his psychological condition during his childhood

Pre-colonial residuals in Toni Morrison's Recitatif and Alice Walker's Everyday Use

This article examines Toni Morrison's Recitatif and Alice Walker's Everyday Use as post-colonial texts. Morrison's short story moves beyond the postcolonial aftermath to maintain pre-colonial cultural conventions. The discussion begins with how Recitatif is considered within the field of postcolonial studies, demonstrating such postcolonial concepts as diaspora, nativism and chromatism. The study also focuses on Alice Walker's short story Everyday Use, and discusses how various forms of Filiation/Affiliation and Synergy contribute to the conventions of precolonial culture. Everyday Use aims precisely at ethical propensity within colonial circumference. Thus, Walkerself-consciously illustrates the level of its pre-colonial features, which expose the colonisation dispersal of identity