Martin Amis remains on the outer fringes of the modern literary canon because his novels have not been appreciated in the context within which they were written. This is, basically, a postmodernist experimental mode which self-consciously tests (but does not abandon) the boundaries of form and content in the traditional English novel. The principal contention here is that Amis "challenges" but does not "change" the human subject as it exists in literature. Hyper-self-consciousness, the signature mark of postmodernism, does not mean simply that Amis's characters are just one-dimensional pawns of literary gamesmanship, even though this is a valid point of inquiry (examined in Chapter One). Rather, the presentation of subjectivity allows for a polyphonous critique and affirmation of literary and moral value. Such critiques and affirmations can be analysed when one examines Amis's inscription and parody of past value systems (such as modernism, described in Chapter Two), and those of the present, nuclear age (described in Chapter Three). As these three inquiries show, Amis does offer a portrait of the human subject, but it is bruised and abused by both the author and the world. Value, in other words, exists here, but its packaging is distinctly different. Amis is therefore not an immoral pop-cultural icon, but a serious postmodernist writer that deserves to be judged accordingly.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.28240 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Allison, Ryan. |
| Contributors | de Monchey, Marika Finley (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001610910, proquestno: MQ43827, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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