Fragile Things, Powerful Maneuvers: Neil Gaiman’s Short Stories as Postmodernist Writing
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Yang, Shiou-Ru
Abstract
The thesis examines how Neil Gaiman''s short stories can be read as postmodernist writing in terms both of thematics and writing strategies. The application of intertextuality and parody, along with the challenges to traditional concepts of rationality, identity, and reality, are the most outstanding postmodernist features of Gaiman''s stories. Through eliminating the boundaries constructed by the preconceived ideas, his short stories deconstruct banal language, linear narrative, and the accepted world order, always inviting the reader to take part in constructing the story. This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part is based on Julia Kristeva''s theory of intertextuality and Patricia Waugh''s discussion on parody. My argument is that Gaiman breaks up the conventions of literary genres to reveal that they are constructed and are liable to put a limit on the reader. In the second part I move on to the problematic both of rationality and identity. I first discuss how the deification of rationality leads to arrogance and narrow-mindedness, which block the way to experience the possibilities in life. As a result, Gaiman proposes that what people should do is to refrain from trying to explain all phenomena, but to acknowledge their existence. As to the problematic of language, I argue that in Gaiman’s short stories, language rather than experience forms identity. While identity always remains unstable, it nevertheless has the power to affect the narrative retroactively. The third part explores Gaiman''s reconceptualization of reality. He considers the real and the illusory to be both indistinguishable and needing no distinguishing, because their boundary already implodes and moving back and forth in this double world is the way we have lived and should live.
Subjects
Neil Gaiman
postmodernism
intertextuality
parody
rationality
identity
reality
Type
thesis