Piecing Together J. G. Ballard’s "The Atrocity Exhibition"

• Authors: Marcin Tereszewski
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

J.G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition can easily be classified as his most experimental novel, one that, more than any other of his works, succeeds in presenting, or perhaps representing, the fragmented condition of a media-saturated Western culture. On the surface, it does appear to be a postmodern and seemingly chaotic bricolage of pop iconography, landscapes, and medical references arranged non-linearly and without plot, and yet there is a unifying principle at work, anchoring the texts in a specific ideological context of 1960s Western culture. The main argument of this paper expands on Debord’s study of spectacle and regards The Atrocity Exhibition as a work that not only attempts to frustrate reading expectations, but also addresses the cultural shift towards spectacular society.

DE

Der Artikel enthält das Abstract ausschließlich in englischer Sprache.

FR

L'article contient uniquement le résumé en anglais.

Keywords

EN

Ballard; Debord; spectacle; experimental literature

DE

FR

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej
• Journal: Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 2

Dates

published

2020

online

2020-07-14

Contributors

author

Marcin Tereszewski

References

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• Debord, G. (2011). Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (M. Imrie, Trans.). London, New York: Verso.
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• Marx, K. (1887). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: Vol. 1. (S. Moore & E. Aveling, Trans.). Retrieved December 25, 2019, from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf.
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Identifiers

DOI

10.17951/lsmll.2020.44.2.75-82