Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2008. Thesis (M.S.)--Cleveland State University, 2008. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jan. 13, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 37). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington 2009. / Title from PDF title page (January 11, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-44)

No description available.

The topic of the following MA thesis is the theme of self-destruction in the works of Chuck Palahniuk, an American author whose novels frequently deal with the disintegration of contemporary society. Self-destruction, which the author often describes in violent details, is in his works portrayed as a form of civil disobedience and as a tool for dealing with social and personal problems. The first section of the thesis will explore the legacy of civil disobedience in American culture as well as violence as a recurring motif in US literature. The next section deals with transgressive fiction, a type of literature Palahniuk is frequently connected to, followed by an overview of his literary output. The last part of the thesis further explores some of his novels and the role self-destruction plays in them.

Wayne Booth and other rhetorical critics have developed methods for examining the rhetorical aspects of fiction. In this dissertation, I examine, specifically, the use of rhetorical violence in American fiction. It is my premise that authors use rhetorical violence and the irrationality of violence created mimetically to construct ironic metaphors that comment on the irrationality of the ideology behind the violence, pushing that ideology's maxims to its logical ends. The goal of rhetorical violence, therefore, is to create the conditions for a transfer of culpability so that the act becomes transitive-transferable-loosed from its moorings. Culpability, if indeed it reflects something intrinsically awry with an ideology, becomes the fault of the ideology-€”it becomes the perpetrator of illogic and the condemnatory force associated with the act of violence gets transferred to it. Hence, if the author has created an effective metaphor, when he or she flips the violent scene'€™s "€œvalue," the audience is willing to follow along. The violence remains a great evil, but the culpability for the act is shifted to a representative of the ideology in question-as-victimizer; nonetheless, that transfer can only occur inasmuch as the audience is willing to force-fit the incongruities of the metaphor.I examine this rhetorical phenomenon in the works of three modern American writers: Flannery O'Connor, Toni Morrison, and Chuck Palahniuk. I seek to examine the ideologies questioned in these works, the contradictory beliefs expressed by the authors, and to explicate primary episodes in the works of fiction wherein rhetorical violence functions in a rhetorical fashion to promulgate the author's ideology by emotionally jarring the reader loose from commonly-held ideological assumptions in three specific appeals: first, to negate one socially-held ideology in order to promote a conflicting one (Wise Blood); second, to elicit compassion for victimized characters representing social ills (Beloved); third, to call into question the validity of social institutions and practices (Fight Club).

L'imaginaire de la fin évolue et s'actualise sans cesse, au gré du temps. Chez Douglas Coupland et Chuck Palahniuk, il se conjugue au singulier. La fin est intime, personnelle, elle ne concerne que le sujet, et lui seul. Néanmoins, elle interpelle les mêmes traits intrinsèques à tout imaginaire de la fin. La fin est transitive, elle est achèvement d'une chose et commencement d'une autre. Le temps de la fin, quant à lui, est toujours aussi harassant à négocier: passé, présent, futur cohabitent difficilement. Enfin, devant tant de désordres, la langue et l'imaginaire sont à leur tour happés par la confusion. À ces trois constantes s'en ajoute une quatrième, à l'œuvre autant dans Generation X que dans Choke: une sursollicitation de l'imaginaire qui provoque un brouillage important dans la perception du réel. Récits de la fin, Generation X et Choke sont aussi des romans du renouveau. S'ils disent que le monde menace l'individualité du sujet et qu'il est responsable des graves dysfonctionnements qu'il connaît, les romans de Coupland et Palahniuk nous disent aussi que l'homme peut être sauvé, s'il le désire. Il n'en tient qu'à lui. Résultat d'une clairvoyance du monde, d'une amère déception, puis façon de fabriquer du sens, la fin chez eux ne renvoie non pas à une fin du monde, à sa clôture, mais bien à son renouvellement, subjectif. Réaction, elle permet la survie, objet de pensée, elle incite à la perdition. Car si l'homme peut renaître, son monde et son imaginaire, eux, sont voués au désordre. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Coupland, Palahniuk, Fin, Imaginaire, Temps.

Wayne Booth and other rhetorical critics have developed methods for examining the rhetorical aspects of fiction. In this dissertation, I examine, specifically, the use of rhetorical violence in American fiction. It is my premise that authors use rhetorical violence and the irrationality of violence created mimetically to construct ironic metaphors that comment on the irrationality of the ideology behind the violence, pushing that ideology's maxims to its logical ends. The goal of rhetorical violence, therefore, is to create the conditions for a transfer of culpability so that the act becomes transitive-transferable-loosed from its moorings. Culpability, if indeed it reflects something intrinsically awry with an ideology, becomes the fault of the ideology-€”it becomes the perpetrator of illogic and the condemnatory force associated with the act of violence gets transferred to it. Hence, if the author has created an effective metaphor, when he or she flips the violent scene'€™s "€œvalue," the audience is willing to follow along. The violence remains a great evil, but the culpability for the act is shifted to a representative of the ideology in question-as-victimizer; nonetheless, that transfer can only occur inasmuch as the audience is willing to force-fit the incongruities of the metaphor.I examine this rhetorical phenomenon in the works of three modern American writers: Flannery O'Connor, Toni Morrison, and Chuck Palahniuk. I seek to examine the ideologies questioned in these works, the contradictory beliefs expressed by the authors, and to explicate primary episodes in the works of fiction wherein rhetorical violence functions in a rhetorical fashion to promulgate the author's ideology by emotionally jarring the reader loose from commonly-held ideological assumptions in three specific appeals: first, to negate one socially-held ideology in order to promote a conflicting one (Wise Blood); second, to elicit compassion for victimized characters representing social ills (Beloved); third, to call into question the validity of social institutions and practices (Fight Club).

Experimental novels written from 1984-2000 by authors associated with Generation X collectively struggle with common sense notions of masculinity in their various decades at the end of the twentieth century. Relying on confessional, first-person narration, first novels written by white men stage a critical engagement of outdated patriarchal norms in an effort to produce a more progressive masculinity based on sentimentality. In the 1980s, McInerney and Ellis novels, Bright Lights, Big City and Less Than Zero chronicle the struggles of empty, yuppie men who cannot make connections with their peers due to their emotionally devoid lives. By the 1990s, Douglas Coupland proposes a new, sentimental masculinity with his protagonist Andy who narrates Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Andy creates sympathetic connections with his peers through the act of confessional storytelling. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club does similar cultural work as Coupland’s novel by creating an anti-sentimental, nameless narrator so bereft of emotion that he creates a hypermasculine alter-ego and violent groups to avoid the emotional emptiness of his life. Finally, Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) produces the most progressive, evolved masculine narrator, Dave, who spends the entire novel coming to terms with the death of his parents while raising his brother as a son. The novels, in both content and form, become more complex and richer reflecting the development of their protagonists and their philosophical arguments for progressing into sentimental men.

No description available.

Este trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar o romance Assombro, de Chuck Palahniuk, como retrato e sintoma do comportamento da sociedade pós-moderna ocidental, cujos valores correspondem, de acordo com palavras do próprio autor, ao “inverso do sonho americano”. A principal característica de tal sociedade é a dificuldade dos indivíduos em lidar com as exigências e constantes mudanças nos âmbitos individual, social e psicológico, o que se configura na obra do escritor estadunidense através de personagens marginais em busca (na maioria das vezes, aparentemente inconsciente) de autoaceitação ou adaptação social. A leitura desenvolvida aqui se baseia principalmente nos escritos do teórico francês Jean Baudrillard, que apresenta o pressuposto de que o mundo contemporâneo encontra-se num estado de “pós-orgia”, assombrado por três fantasmas que o teórico chama de câncer, travesti e terrorismo, os quais simbolizam questões sociais contemporâneas relacionadas à política, sexualidade, comunicação e relacionamentos humanos, entre outros aspectos. Os conceitos de Baudrillard que norteiam a análise são: 'estado de pós-orgia', 'hiperrealidade', 'simulação', 'virulência' e 'sedução' e 'fantasmas'. O trabalho também apresenta as características da literatura de Chuck Palahniuk e sua recém-iniciada fortuna crítica, apontando os principais aspectos da sociedade pós-moderna presentes em suas obras e culminando em um cotejo de Assombro com o gótico e sua vertente pós-moderna, além de uma comparação entre a dinâmica estabelecida entre as personagens do romance e aquela percebida nos reality shows e falsos documentários (mock-documentaries). A conclusão retoma aspectos na estrutura, imaginário e conteúdo do romance, que permitem defini-lo como retrato e sintoma de uma nova configuração social, resultado das inevitáveis mudanças por que o mundo passa. / This dissertation aims at presenting Chuck Palahniuk‟s novel Haunted as a portrait and symptom of the behavior perceived in the postmodern Western society, whose values, according to the author himself, correspond to “the opposite of the American Dream”. The main characteristic of such society is the individuals‟ difficulty in dealing with demands and constant changes in the individual, social and psychological spheres, a fact observed in the work of this American writer through the presence of marginal characters in a more often than not apparently unconscious search of self-acceptance or social adaptation. The reading proposed is mainly based on the writings of French theoretician Jean Baudrillard, who presents the assumption that the contemporary world is in a “post-orgy” state, haunted by three phantasies he denominates cancer, transvestitism and terrorism, which symbolize contemporary social issues related to politics, sexuality, communication and human relationships, among other aspects. The concepts by Baudrillard that underlie the analysis are: 'post-orgy state', 'hyperreality', 'simulation', 'virulence', 'seduction' and 'phantasies'. The work also presents the features of the literature produced by Chuck Palahniuk and its newly-started critical fortune, highlighting the main aspects of postmodern society present in his works, culminating with an approximation of Haunted to the postmodern variation of Gothic literature, besides a comparison between the dynamics established among the characters in the novel to the one perceived in reality shows and mock-documentaries. The conclusion strengthens aspects in the structure, imaginary and content of the novel that enable the definition of Haunted as portrait and symptom of a new social organization, resulting from the inevitable changes the world goes through.