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Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary American Fiction

The Works of Don DeLillo and Joseph McElroy

by Steffen Hantke (Author)
©1994 Thesis 191 Pages

Summary

Under the influence of Thomas Pynchon, a generation of postmodern American writers has explored the theme of conspiracy and paranoia, its origins in contemporary American culture, and its political and ideological ramifications. This intense preoccupation with paranoid forms of conceptual organization has helped critics to represent postmodernism as a coherent phenomenon and define it as a period. While for many readers the assumption of periodic homogeneity is still valid, postmodern fiction has, in fact, been diversifying rapidly in the course of its development over the last 20 years. In the works of Don DeLillo and Joseph McElroy, a new set of narrative premises, which mark a significant paradigmatic shift within postmodern American fiction, has begun to emerge from the dialogic interplay with Pynchonesque paranoia.

Details

Pages
191
Publication Year
1994
ISBN (PDF)
9783653022124
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-02212-4
Language
English
Publication date
2012 (October)
Published
Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Wien, 1994. 191 pp.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Steffen Hantke (Author)

The Author: Steffen Hantke was born in 1962 in Berlin. He studied English and German at the Philipps University in Marburg and the University of Maryland at College Park. He lives and works in the USA.

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Title: Conspiracy and Paranoia in Contemporary American Fiction