![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I propose that myths are used within these two texts as a meta-modern device to transcend post-modern theories, such as post-structuralism and deconstruction. In this essay, I explore the myths presented within two contemporary novels, Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. In its place, as I illustrate, Foer's novels advance a challenging philosophy of living with inexorable trauma: this ethic, which demands authenticity but discounts healing or self-preservation, and even apparently endorses suicide, highlights the dangers of ignoring Dominick LaCapra's warning against confusing absence with loss when talking about trauma. By conflating these concepts, his novels evoke an original, structural trauma, which problematises the practical imperative of trauma theory to work through trauma. Foer's signature motif of 'holes' alludes not only to trauma but also to post-structural theories of language and a postmodern sense of the absence of an all-synthesising paradigm of truth. This paper argues that these novels give rise to implications that are difficult to reconcile with that theory. Abstract: Jonathan Safran Foer's novels Everything is illuminated and Extremely loud and incredibly close are commonly read as trauma fiction-works that incorporate insights from literary trauma theory. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |