How to Get a Grip on Yourself: Psychosis, Drugs, and Humor in Naked Lunch
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Chien, Julia
Abstract
The focus of my thesis is the pathological comic element in Naked Lunch. By studying the comic elements in Naked Lunch, I have come to the conclusion that humor and pathological comedy is a means for Burroughs to assume control. Control is needed because Burroughs’ psychic structure is psychotic, and is subject to impulses from within and from without. Delusional ideas expressed after Burroughs “accidentally” killed his wife Joan points to a psychotic trigger, and my focus turns towards how Burroughs managed to coexist with these tensions. In Burroughs’ work, I’ve discovered how Burroughs fashioned various means to repossess himself, to assume control. These artificial means culminate in Naked Lunch, which is radically different, stylistically speaking, from his previous two novels, Junky and Queer. These specific means include the use of drugs as a tension regulatory system, as well as the appropriation of junky-linguo to express his psychotic experience. Furthermore, in his routines, he adopted the position of the shameless antihero, which enabled him to speak without producing an enunciated subject, to speak without having to surrender to Law. This rebellion towards the Law points to his belief in an Other of the Other, which led him down the road to magic and telepathy. As a consequence, he speaks the occultist’s discourse. This discourse indicates a social bond with society, and he is able to secure a place for himself under the sun.
Subjects
William Burroughs
Naked Lunch
psychosis
drugs
addiction
humor
comedy
Type
thesis
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