Tension and tense in Don DeLillo's art of prose
The connection between man and his world is possible via language. Language binds people and their reality together and enables orientation for the former in the latter. As to how close this language of the humankind is to the real things of the world, the answer has always been controversial. Today...
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| További közreműködők: | |
| Dokumentumtípus: | Könyv része |
| Megjelent: |
2012
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| Sorozat: | Acta Universitatis Szegediensis de Attila József nominatae : papers in english and american studies
22 Papers in English and American studies : Tomus XXII. - Distinguished Szeged student papers 22 |
| Kulcsszavak: | Amerikai irodalom története - 20-21. sz. |
| Tárgyszavak: | |
| Online Access: | http://acta.bibl.u-szeged.hu/68856 |
| Tartalmi kivonat: | The connection between man and his world is possible via language. Language binds people and their reality together and enables orientation for the former in the latter. As to how close this language of the humankind is to the real things of the world, the answer has always been controversial. Today, in the light of postmodern and post-structuralist theories of language, it is accepted that language is merely a system, a structure, with insoluble limitations. Besides this, however, there has always been present the trend that searches for and tries to invent the perfect language, which like Adam's language in the Bible, is in direct and harmonious connection with the world. Most of the postmodern writers, naturally, emphasize the corruptness of language, but there are exceptions who fit within somewhere in between the two traditions. There are, in fact, postmodern writers who realize the limitations inherent in language still search for and perhaps believe in the existence of a redemptive language that connects directly to the world. Don DeLillo is one of these writers. In my paper, first I shall look at briefly two of his earlier novels (White Noise, The Names) in which there are instances when characters experience a kind of lingual transcendence, then I analyze in more detail one of his newest novel, The Body Artist. In this novel, there is a fantasy-like character (Mr. Tuttle) who, by being in every term exposed to the real world, is unable to lean on the soothing banisters of human language and a temporally determined perception. DeLillo problematizes human cognition in him but also attempts to absolve the presented disposition characteristic of humans. He tries also to provide a cure for that disposition of the 'language-disease' and in trying to achieve this he sets the tone of this novel consciously in an indefinite and elusive manner. He tries thus to transcend everyday language through an enigmatic representation that aims at a cathartic experience in the reader in order to arrive at another and perhaps more direct or sensual relationship with the world. |
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| Terjedelem/Fizikai jellemzők: | 183-205 |
| ISBN: | 978-963-482-991-1 |
| ISSN: | 0230-2780 |