This thesis argues that consumerism and the mass media wield an unparalleled influence over contemporary North American society, and that these forces constitute the primary means through which identity is constituted. The historical and theoretical developments that have led to the foregrounding of these forces are outlined in the introduction - developments, it is argued, that are intrinsically connected to the social upheava1 that characterized America in the late 1960's and early 1970's, while their presence in and effects on the fiction of four contemporary North American writers - Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis and Douglas Coupland - are examined in the main body of the thesis. Chapter I focuses on Pynchon whose novels, it is argued, are the product of a uniquely post-1960's America, which mourns the sacrifice of traditional ideals to the corporate mindset which has been prevalent since ths 1980's Pynchon's dominant metaphor for the direction in which he believes American society to be moving is the thermodynamic concept of entropy, which stipulates that all prqress is towards death. His novels abound with characters who disintegrate due to the information overload fostered by their media-based world. However, he retains his faith that a return to historical values and traditions will stem and even reverse the entropic tide DeLillo, a close contemporary of Pynchon's, draws on a different aspect of the legacy of the 1960's, for his writing is overshadowed by the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy and the years of turbulence that ensued. His novels are ultimately more pessimistic because his characters do not succeed in escaping from the repressive narratives of consumerism and the mass media in order to reassert their own personalities. One reason for this failure, it is argued, is that DeLillo's characters represent a metaphorical dramatization of the dichotomy between the modernist desire for structure and the postmodernist embrace of fluidity and uncertainty. The fictional characters of the younger authors, Ellis and Coupland, inhabit this postmodern world where all experience has been rendered depthless and traditional ontological and epistemological certainties have been collapsed Ellis' characters fluctuate between the extremes of apathy and violence as they search for a way of preventing their psyches from disintegrating amidst the surrounding chaos. Neither one of these options brings - any relief. Coupland is more optimistic about the ability of his characters to survive and even prosper in the contemporary world. He arms them with the linguistic and technological skills necessary to adapt to the rapid social and technological changes. Most importantly of all, he draws on the sense of objectivity fostered by his own background as a Canadian in order to provide them with an alternative and a sense of escape from the media-saturated environment of the American West Coast. What is perhaps most remarkable about these four authors as a group is that in spite of their obvious insight into the nature of the contemporary postmodern world, they are unwilling - or perhaps even unable - to fully relinquish their hold on a number of traditional metanarratives, most notably the ideal of the stable, supportive family unit. This implies a degree of uncertainty and perhaps even of fear on their parts about fully committing to the fluidity of contemporary culture.

The four novels - The Floating Opera, The End of the Road, White Noise, and Vineland - are representative of the cultural shift away from traditional moral concepts after World War II. Popular culture has increasingly become the guiding force for the continuation of American society, and in Don DeLillo�s White Noise, popular culture and its creation of myth (according to the author�s representation of America) has become embedded in the system and life of contemporary America. John Barth�s novel The End of the Road and its predecessor The Floating Opera are important in any discussion of the role of popular culture and popular mythology in post-war America. They both appear to signal an end to sincere intellectual thought or debate, and the notion of imposing a rational moral world upon the social landscape surrounding the individual. The Floating Opera explores the common tendency of society to avoid difficult intellectual struggles, and the central character and first-person narrator ultimately realises that questions about the nature of existence are of no objective value. In The End of the Road the character Jacob Horner adopts a superficial reflection of pre-existing rules and social conventions. Together these novels reflect much of what is at present understood as the postmodern aesthetic, and are indicative of many of the changes in America that were about to occur. The Floating Opera was published in 1956 and The End of the Road was published in 1958, but they are still highly relevant beyond the period in which they were written. White Noise (1984) portrays a system founded on the Hollywood mythology, and the superficial reflection of pre-existing rules and social conventions found in The End of the Road. The novel revolves around the experiences of the narrator, Jack Gladney, a university lecturer who teaches Hitler studies at Blacksmith College, and his wife Babette. The course which he teaches on Hitler is influenced by Hollywood myth, and the novel portrays a consumer-based society that has lost much of the firm moral basis which traditional religious concepts formerly supplied. The role of television, Hollywood, and the idea of simulation are all explored throughout the novel and are important forces in any examination of post-war American society. Finally, in Vineland (1990) the social upheavals which occurred during the late �60s and early �70s are explored from the perspective of the 1980s. The novel refers to a vast array of images and icons from popular culture, and the brief youth rebellion, in the late �60s, which failed to inspire any final social revolution. The result of this failed social revolution is a landscape of popular culture in modern America, where Godzilla leaves footprints in Japan and popular mythology from television or pulp novels coincides with everyday life. There are references in typical Pynchonesque fashion to those who must necessarily be orchestrating these social and cultural alterations, but they, as specific individuals, remain anonymous or hidden from the scope of the author (although, as in White Noise, there are deliberate references to the CIA and other agencies or departments within the U.S. Federal Government). Vineland is important, therefore, both as an account of the social changes which occurred in America between the late �60s and �80s, and the increasing role of popular culture in America. These four novels form the basis of an exploration of the role of popular mythology and popular culture in post-war America. They form a clear progression, and allow a detailed analysis of the social and cultural changes which contemporary America has undergone since the end of World War II.

The four novels - The Floating Opera, The End of the Road, White Noise, and Vineland - are representative of the cultural shift away from traditional moral concepts after World War II. Popular culture has increasingly become the guiding force for the continuation of American society, and in Don DeLillo�s White Noise, popular culture and its creation of myth (according to the author�s representation of America) has become embedded in the system and life of contemporary America. John Barth�s novel The End of the Road and its predecessor The Floating Opera are important in any discussion of the role of popular culture and popular mythology in post-war America. They both appear to signal an end to sincere intellectual thought or debate, and the notion of imposing a rational moral world upon the social landscape surrounding the individual. The Floating Opera explores the common tendency of society to avoid difficult intellectual struggles, and the central character and first-person narrator ultimately realises that questions about the nature of existence are of no objective value. In The End of the Road the character Jacob Horner adopts a superficial reflection of pre-existing rules and social conventions. Together these novels reflect much of what is at present understood as the postmodern aesthetic, and are indicative of many of the changes in America that were about to occur. The Floating Opera was published in 1956 and The End of the Road was published in 1958, but they are still highly relevant beyond the period in which they were written. White Noise (1984) portrays a system founded on the Hollywood mythology, and the superficial reflection of pre-existing rules and social conventions found in The End of the Road. The novel revolves around the experiences of the narrator, Jack Gladney, a university lecturer who teaches Hitler studies at Blacksmith College, and his wife Babette. The course which he teaches on Hitler is influenced by Hollywood myth, and the novel portrays a consumer-based society that has lost much of the firm moral basis which traditional religious concepts formerly supplied. The role of television, Hollywood, and the idea of simulation are all explored throughout the novel and are important forces in any examination of post-war American society. Finally, in Vineland (1990) the social upheavals which occurred during the late �60s and early �70s are explored from the perspective of the 1980s. The novel refers to a vast array of images and icons from popular culture, and the brief youth rebellion, in the late �60s, which failed to inspire any final social revolution. The result of this failed social revolution is a landscape of popular culture in modern America, where Godzilla leaves footprints in Japan and popular mythology from television or pulp novels coincides with everyday life. There are references in typical Pynchonesque fashion to those who must necessarily be orchestrating these social and cultural alterations, but they, as specific individuals, remain anonymous or hidden from the scope of the author (although, as in White Noise, there are deliberate references to the CIA and other agencies or departments within the U.S. Federal Government). Vineland is important, therefore, both as an account of the social changes which occurred in America between the late �60s and �80s, and the increasing role of popular culture in America. These four novels form the basis of an exploration of the role of popular mythology and popular culture in post-war America. They form a clear progression, and allow a detailed analysis of the social and cultural changes which contemporary America has undergone since the end of World War II.

The thesis aims to explore the artistic personality of Hunter S. Thompson, one of the most distinctive cultural figures of post-war America, and his genesis as an author, journalist, and a counterculture idol of the 1960s. The era is now widely regarded as a turning point in contemporary American history as its deep-rooted values and norms were, over the course of a decade, gradually transformed by the young generation of social and political activists toward allegedly a more tolerant and liberal kind of community. Crucial in such an endeavor was the role of the countercultural movement that produced some of the most capable intellectual minds of the time, including Thompson. The paper thus analyzes the role and nature of the alternative culture in America as perceived by one of its most observant participants. Also, the thesis focuses on the author's role in establishing a new genre called New Journalism which can be linked with the era's countercultural efforts as well. In general, Thompson, in his texts, examines various phenomena surrounding the counterculture and provides us with a distinctive portrayal of the era's zeitgeist. However, unlike some of his contemporaries, he also remembers to examine numerous flaws and fallacies existing within contemporary American society, the American Dream...

This thesis identifies the existence and significance of a rhetorical gesture that has circulated widely since at least the nineteenth century: the comparison between war and sport. The introduction outlines the background for this rhetoric through a genealogy of the phrase, 'the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton', in nineteenth-century writing. Part one of the thesis examines the metaphors and cultural practices of energetics in European sporting life until the Second World War. The first chapter presents a cultural history of 'sporting aviation' between the Wright brothers' first European flight in 1908 and the declaration of war in 1914, arguing that the new technology of the aeroplane was initially understood through a tension between sporting and bellicose associations. The second chapter performs a close analysis of F.T. Marinetti's writings and Umberto Boccioni's paintings to reveal the role of sport in Italian Futurism and its significance for our understanding of its infamous glorification of warfare. Chapter three examines the militarist displays at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and their enduring cultural legacy. Focusing on the role of crowds, rhythm is shown to be at the centre of how martial symbolism was embedded in the Games' sporting displays. Framing the transition into part two, the fourth chapter reads Georges Perec's use of the Olympics as an allegory for both the Second World War and the Holocaust in W, or the Memory of Childhood (1975) beside a number of post-war conceptualisations of 'play' and 'game'. The chapter identifies a re-organisation of the play concept according to an emerging concern with information, one which, in Perec, also articulates an alternative register for war's cultural memory. From here, the thesis' second part identifies the emergence of a metaphorical nexus of computation, war, and sport in post-war American culture. Chapter five argues that Don DeLillo's End Zone (1972) and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (1996) satirise the logic of nuclear strategy by employing the formal properties of information theory in their language, collapsing the distinctions between war and sport when each is subjected to computational representation. The final chapter analyses the 'military shooter' videogame, and the new form of sport it has produced - 'e-sports' - considering these games as a material instantiation of the convergence between the discourses of military and sporting culture. Across the case studies presented in these six chapters, a transition is identified from metaphors concerned with war and sport's energetic qualities to those concerned with the processing and abstraction of war and sport as information. Rather than conceive of this transition as an epistemic break, however, the thesis identifies continuities across the principles to be found in cultural energetics and informatics.

This dissertation proposes to examine the conspiracy narratives of Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, and Leslie Marmon Silko that retell American experience with the Cold War and its culture of paranoia for the last half of the twentieth century. Witnessing the resurgence of Cold War paranoia and its dramatic twilight during the period from late 70s to mid-80s and the sudden advent of the post-Cold War era that has provoked a volatile mixture of euphoria and melancholia, the work of DeLillo, Didion, and Silko explores the changing mode of Cold War paranoid epistemology and contemplates its conditions of narrative possibility in the post-Cold War era. From his earlier novels such as Players, The Names, and Mao II to his latest novel about 9/11 Falling Man, DeLillo has interrogated how the American paradigm of paranoid national self-fashioning envisioned by Cold War liberals stands up to its equally paranoid post-Cold War nemesis, terrorism. In his epic dramatization of Cold War history in Underworld, DeLillo mythologizes the doomed sense of paranoid connectivity and collective belonging experienced during the Cold War era. In doing so, DeLillo attempts to contain the uncertainty and instability of the post-Cold War or what Francis Fukuyama calls "post-historical" landscape of global cognitive mapping within the nostalgically secured memory of the American crowd who had lived the paranoid history of the Cold War. In her novels that investigate the history of American involvements in the Third World from Eisenhower through Kennedy to Reagan, Didion employs the minimalist narrative style to curb, extenuate, or condense the paranoid narratives of Cold War imperial romance most recently exemplified in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. In her latest Cold War romance novel The Last Thing He Wanted, Didion reassesses her earlier narrative tactic of "calculated ellipsis" employed in A Book of Common Prayer and Democracy and seeks to commemorate individual romances behind the spectacles of Cold War myth of frontier. Departing from the rhetoric of "hybrid patriotism" in Ceremony, a Native American story of spiritual healing and lyricism that works to appease white paranoia and guilt associated with the atomic bomb, Silko in Almanac of the Dead seeks to subvert the paranoid regime of Cold War imperialism inflicted upon Native Americans and Third World subjects by mobilizing alternative conspiracy narratives from the storytelling tradition of Native American spirituality. Silko?s postnational spiritual conspiracy gestures toward a global cognitive mapping beyond the American Cold War paradigm of "paranoid oneworldedness".

This paper explores narratology with a focus on metaphorical and physical voice in Don DeLillo’s 1982 novel, The Names. Beginning with an overview of previous criticism on the novel and an exploration of its post-modern qualities, I progress into a discussion of meaning, and how it can be found in the narratological voice. The concepts of semantic and vocal form of meaning are taken into consideration. Moreover, it is demonstrated how language in The Names is both representational and experiential.Analysing the novel both in print and in audiobook format, I study voice from the perspective of post-classical narratology. With the use of audionarratological theory, I illustrate how voice in The Names is transformed into an explicit and amplified presence when encountered in its audiobook form. In this context, ideological characteristics of the voice are explored, and I look at how they are semiotically communicated.Finally, since criticism of post-modern fiction usually focuses on representational and metafictional qualities of language, this paper advocates for future research on the experiential qualities of language and asks for this mindset to be applied when analysing post-modern fiction. It is illustrated how the experience of listening to an audiobook version can add to the interpretation of a printed work.

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Ecocritical theology relates to American fiction as it connects nature and spirituality. In my development of the term “neo-pastoral” I begin with Virgil’s Eclogues to serve as examples for spiritual and nature related themes. Virgil’s characters in “The Dispossessed” represent people’s alienation from the land. Meliboeus must leave his homeland because the Roman government has reassigned it to their war veterans. As he leaves Meliboeus wonders why fate has rendered this judgment on him and yet has granted his friend Tityrus a reprieve. Typically, pastoral literature represents people’s longing to leave the city and return to the spiritual respite of the country. When Meliboeus begins his journey he does not travel toward a specific geographical location. Because the gods have forced him from his land and severed his spiritual connection to nature he travels into the unknown. This is the starting point from which I develop neo-pastoral threads in contemporary literature and discuss the alienation that people experience when they are no longer connected to a spirit of the land or genius loci. Neo-pastoralism relates Bakhtin’s idea of chronotope and the expansion of the narrative voice of the novel to include the time/space dialogic. Neo-pastoral fiction shows people in their quest to find spirituality in spite of damage from chemical catastrophic events and suggests they may turn to technology as an ideological base to replace religion. The (anti) heroes of this genre often feel no connection with Judeo-Christian canon yet they do not consider other models of spirituality. Through catastrophes related to the atomic bomb, nuclear waste accidents, and the realization of how chemical pollutants affect the atmosphere, neo-pastoral literature explores the idea of apocalypticism in the event of mass annihilation and the need for canonical reformation. The novels explored in this dissertation are John Updike’s Rabbit, Run; Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49; Bernard Malamud’s The Fixer; Don DeLillo’s White Noise; Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead; Toni Morrison’s Paradise; and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.