| Description |
This study approaches William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch as a rhetorical act in which the disruption of conventional reading expectations functions as a strategic attack on American institutionalized conformity during the 1950's. As a rhetorical act, the novel dramatizes and demythologizes the sublimated modes of addiction which characterized American social, political, and cultural institution representative of its milieu. Contrary to the conventions of the novel, Naked Lunch is formally disruptive, thereby violating reader expectations established by the novel genre. These violations function rhetorically to influence the reader to assume a more responsive stance as interpreter of the novel. Ultimately, the novel aims at the examination of conventional social institutions by obligating the reader to question the basis on which he understands the "reality" of the novel. As a rhetorical act, Naked Lunch responds vehementaly to the social conformity and material consumption which characterized the institutionalized norms of America during the 1950's. The second chapter analyzes the structure of action, narrative discourse, and socio-psychological implications of the novel as basic cummunicative relationships between reader and text. The study traces reader response as an encounter bound and guided by generic expectations of the novel form. The analysis suggests that the novel is interpreted through the conventional expectations of the novel genre even though these conventions are violated. The third chapter sumarizes the findings of the previous chapters and analyzes the more specific implied audience of Naked Lunch. It is argued that Naked Lunch as a radical commentary on the 1950's, addresses a "liberal" audience in order to expose the underlying establishment interests which allow this community to profit from others' addictions. |
