Joyce Carol Oates- Zombies
● The relationship between fact and fiction in the American novel- focussing on
the representations of American racism, queer sexuality and violence.
● The relationship between violence, race and experimental aesthetics of the
postmodern novel.
Fact and Fiction
● The blending of history plays a significant role within the post-modern
American novel. Joyce Carol Oates offers a unique perspective on recent
historical events and delves into the dark side of US history.
● She argues that because writing is artificial, the representation of fact cannot
help but be artificial and fictional.
● These novels display a theoretical self awareness of fiction and history
● Historiographic metafiction questions the relationship between fact and
fiction and they engage and unveil the parallels between writing literature and
historiography suggesting that both are acts of construction that do not reflect
or represent reality or the past, but instead represent and shape them from
subjective and ideological perspectives.
● ‘Zombie’ is both a work of fiction but portrays a narrative of real life American
serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Postmodern Gothic
● Postmodern Gothic is a unique mode by itself consciousness which includes
various levels of meta-discourses which run subversively against mainstream
society and the literature that claims to represent it.
● It disrupts the dominating accounts of history, religion, culture and identity by
referring to inverted versions of the same implied by grotesque or fantastic
devices.
● It attempts to deconstruct the narrative construction of the self, which
questions an essentialist notion of the self and points to the fluid aspects of
identity.
● Points to the darkness of postmodernity and reflects ontological and
epistemological perspectives that query accepted as ethical realities.
● Calls attention to unconscious fears, beliefs and prejudices in terms of desires
that instigate them but also repercussions for society in general.
● It locates the mode as a literary blend of theoretical approaches to subjectivity
in a pivotal role in contemporary literary development.
● The relationship between fact and fiction in the American novel- focussing on
the representations of American racism, queer sexuality and violence.
● The relationship between violence, race and experimental aesthetics of the
postmodern novel.
Fact and Fiction
● The blending of history plays a significant role within the post-modern
American novel. Joyce Carol Oates offers a unique perspective on recent
historical events and delves into the dark side of US history.
● She argues that because writing is artificial, the representation of fact cannot
help but be artificial and fictional.
● These novels display a theoretical self awareness of fiction and history
● Historiographic metafiction questions the relationship between fact and
fiction and they engage and unveil the parallels between writing literature and
historiography suggesting that both are acts of construction that do not reflect
or represent reality or the past, but instead represent and shape them from
subjective and ideological perspectives.
● ‘Zombie’ is both a work of fiction but portrays a narrative of real life American
serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
Postmodern Gothic
● Postmodern Gothic is a unique mode by itself consciousness which includes
various levels of meta-discourses which run subversively against mainstream
society and the literature that claims to represent it.
● It disrupts the dominating accounts of history, religion, culture and identity by
referring to inverted versions of the same implied by grotesque or fantastic
devices.
● It attempts to deconstruct the narrative construction of the self, which
questions an essentialist notion of the self and points to the fluid aspects of
identity.
● Points to the darkness of postmodernity and reflects ontological and
epistemological perspectives that query accepted as ethical realities.
● Calls attention to unconscious fears, beliefs and prejudices in terms of desires
that instigate them but also repercussions for society in general.
● It locates the mode as a literary blend of theoretical approaches to subjectivity
in a pivotal role in contemporary literary development.
