Technical and Structural Experimentation in Dave Eggers\u27 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Jonathan Safran Foer\u27s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
This thesis discusses the experimental writing techniques of two contemporary American authors, Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer, in their works A Heartbreaking Work o f Staggering Genius and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, respectively. These authors’ narrative experiments are examined and contextualized through the lens of trauma theory, a practice of literary analysis that relies upon studies of the effects of trauma, most specifically the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Branin posits that Eggers’ and Foer’s experimental narrative choices—e.g. shifts in form and narrator, the use of circuitous and non-chronological narratives, typographical experiments, and the use of images instead of words—are not only shaped by the trauma the characters in each work have experienced, but are also necessary to accurately and fully convey the experience of trauma. Experimental narratives linguistically and aesthetically reflect the cognitive realities of their traumatized subjects
