Mark Davis
‘Death and Self-destruction in American Postmodernism: an
exploration of the wayward characters in Truman Capote’s
In Cold Blood, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and
Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Proposal
The looming threat of nuclear annihilation spawned a generation whose poster boys
include James Dean, Marlon Brando, Bill Haley and Elvis Presley. These icons
embody the attitude of reckless ‘living for the moment’ and the lack of consideration
for any kind of future. The increasing effect of this feeling of being ‘on thin ice’ can
be traced through the 50’s and 60’s by the narratives of Holden Caulfield, Randle
McMurphy and Perry Smith and even beyond into the excesses the post-modern
psychopath. This project will argue that these characters are products of bomb culture.
With particular attention to Freud’s death instinct theory in Beyond the Pleasure
Principle and Jeff Nutall’s Bomb Culture this project will examine the effects of the
atomic bomb and global conflict and on the fictional characters that defined American
postmodernism.
Secondary Readings
Altschuler, Glen, All Shook Up: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Changed America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2003)
The evaluation of the influence of rock n roll in 1950’s America provides a useful
insight into the value system of the time. A society that was so fearful and suspicious
of a music that came from black culture and championed sex and romance may have
been the perfect breeding ground for the characters this project will study. Conversely,
an argument could be made that the emergence of rock‘n’roll was only made possible
by the bomb; in either case the subject of this book produces some excellent debating
points for this study. Altschuler gives rock‘n’roll significant credit in the creation of
the cultural and political climate of 1950’s America, this project will add to this the
huge influence of the bomb and create a complete picture of the period and show how
the mentioned literary characters came to represent this time.
Baudrillard, Jean, America (London: Verso, 1989)
The French philosopher and renowned thinker offers a series of observations of
American culture, society and landscape following a visit he made to the States. He
labels the country “the only remaining primitive society” which helps demostrate the
scope of this book and its unique viewpoint. As a leading critic of postmodernism his
opinions will add weight to an argument critiquing this subject. His idea that
“America is the original version of modernity” may help to explain the origins of the
rootless, directionless characters that this project will study. The contrasting
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behaviour of an American and a French family he observes on a beach may offer an
insight into the difference between the French existentialist movement and American
postmodernism.
Borgmann, Albert, Crossing the Postmodern Divide (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992)
Borgmann provides a comphrensive and eloquent appraisal of the true meanings of
postmodernism. Since this dissertation will address the beginnings of postmodernism
and examine its origins, a guide to the fundamental parts of postmodernism is
essential. The notion of a “new era”, which is described in the book, is an idea this
project will explore with reference to the bomb. Fittingly, the book looks at the use of
language in postmodernism and how discourses of the time represent what was
happening in society, this which is exactly this project intends to probe.
Boyer, Paul S., By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the
Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)
Boyer offers a comprehensive overview of the bombs effect on American culture
through the sixties until his time of writing at the close of the Cold War. The chapters
entitled, “The Crisis of Morals and Values” and “Culture and Consciousness in the
Early Atomic Era”, will have most relevance to the topic of this study as justifications
and literary imagination are examined respectively. The scope of the book taps into an
important part of the proposed hypothesis; the idea of nuclear anxiety, summed up
best in a quote, “one millisecond after you read this, you and one billion other people
could begin to perish”. It is the reaction to this fear that this project will argue
spawned the lost, rebellious outcast of society.
Camus, Albert, The Outsider (London: Penguin, 1942)
In this novel Camus uses his nihilist protagonist to outline his existentialist view of
the world. Camus’ character has a perception that nothing really matters and there is
no moral framework to base life upon. This project will use this novel to show that
nihilistic and rebellious characters existed before the bomb but had an attitude that
was essentially different. Where the hypothesis of this dissertation suggests the atomic
generation rebelled as they felt they had no future, the French existentialist movement
is different and this book will help explain how. This novel will be relevant to this
project when I rebut the idea that the bomb is insignificant in the rise of nihilism in
literature. This study will argue that the bomb made people turn against society more
violently than existentialism.
Dickstein, Morris, Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction
1945- 1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2002)
Leopards…’s focus is largely on the period of American history this project is
analysing. The chapter, “On and Off the Road: The Outsider as Young Rebel”
describes how America was up in arms about the new teenage phenomenon and felt
youth culture was a threat. This dissertation suggests that the entire emergence of the
teenager was a direct consequence of the atomic bomb. A distance between adults and
children began as those who hit puberty after Hiroshima had to live with the propspect
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of instant death from a young age resulting in a formation of different values and
ideas of morality. The arguments in this book even reference Salinger’s The Catcher
in the Rye and Brando’s The Wild One which will add critical clout to the argument
suggesting these texts are essential to the understanding of this period.
Freud, Sigmund, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (London: Penguin, 2003)
Freud’s death drive/ instinct theory will form an important part of the argument of this
study making the book in which the theory is outlined essential. The proposition is
that the death instinct is a drive toward death, destruction and non existence opposing
Eros which is a drive toward cohesion and unity. The death drive is counter- intuitive,
the pleasure principle cannot account for the tendency toward non-pleasurable
behaviour. All the characters under analysis by this project all veer toward self
destruction almost intently; Freudian theory will help account for these actions and
will add scope to the trauma imposed on society by a looming nuclear war.
Kerouac, Jack, On the Road (London: Penguin, 1972)
To omit a reference to On the Road in a study of the American rebel in the post war
era would be a huge error. By discussing Kerouac’s novel, which describes a semi
autobiographical journey influenced by jazz, poetry and his friendship with “the
beats”, I hope to show another angle of the bomb’s influence. This project will focus
on characters who have used their alienation to become psychopathic outcasts from
society but Kerouac describes a pursuit of liberty, this fear of not having a future is
vented far more positively. The fact that the story of the road is quintessentially
American may help account for the emergence of a generation of people who, like the
characters being analysed, are one way or another, drifting.
Nuttall, Jeff, Bomb Culture (London: Paladin, 1970)
Nuttall explores the cultural changes going on across the world through the forties and
fifties. He examines black culture, the jazz movement and pop culture and the
influence of the bomb on them all. The argument proposed is similar to the hypothesis
of this project; the bomb was hugely significant and was essential in shaping post war
culture. For this reason it will be enormously helpful as a point of reference and also
as a guideline for applying this theory to the world of literature.
Soloman, J. Fisher, Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1988)
When writing Discourse… Soloman claimed to be answering the question of why
nuclear criticism became so important during the eighties. He examines the attitude of
the America people from the early atomic age to the post Cold War era. He suggests
that although the thought of nuclear war was “awful” it was not “unthinkable”, this
tension is something this project will explore; the elephant in the room approach to an
atomic war. The focus of this text is mainly of the political and philosophical but,
more importantly to this project, is Soloman’s comments on the atomic bomb’s
influence on narratives and the emergence of a new form of literary criticism. The
claim that there may be a morbid fascination with being lone survivors of a nuclear
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holocaust is an idea which may have parallels to the feelings of the characters this
project will be examining.
Further Reading
Barth, John, The End of the Road (NewYork: Bantam Books, 1969)
Camus, Albert, The Rebel (London: Penguin, 1951)
Grey, John, Nuclear Annihilation and Contemporary American Poetry: Ways of
Nothingness (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996)
Hasan, Ihab Habib, Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961)
Hendin, Josephine G. A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and
Culture. (London: Blackwell Publishing, 2004)
Hungerford, Amy, The Holocaust of Texts: Genocide, Literature and Personification
(Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 2003)
Huskinson, Lucy, Nietzsche and Jung: The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites
(Hove: Brunner- Routledge, 2004)
Klinkowitz, Jerom, Structuring the Void: The Struggle for Subject in Contemporary
American Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1992)
Miller, Douglas T., The Fifties: The way were really were (New York: Doubleday,
1977)
Schleifer, Ronald, Rhetoric and death: The Language of Modernism and
Postmodernism Discourse Theory (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990)
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