Kosinski's Being There and the Existential Anti-Hero
Critics have referred to Kosinski's Being There as his worst novel. Perhaps, Kosinski's prosaic style is deceptive in its apparent simplicity (especially when contrasted with The Painted Bird). "What Kosinski seeks to do," as Welch D. Everman relates, "is to stimulate the reader's recreative and imaginative task by offering only the essentials...Kosinski's style draws the reader into the incident by refusing to allow him to remain passive" (25). This essay will propose that Being There is a major existential work following in the tradition of Sartre and Camus in which Chance, the main protagonist, mirrors Camus's Mersault in A Happy Death and in which Koskinski demonstrates the logical progression of the existential anti-hero.
An initial response to Being There often might be to focus upon the text as a type of Creation anecdote, or as a social satire, or perhaps as a political critique against mass media and the television generation. While all of these readings are legitimate, it seems that the starting point should center on Kosinski's protagonist, Chance, in order to understand the universal significance of the portrayal of Chance, and implicitly the reader, as victim. Chance is a contemporary innocent. Whether, as is often argued, he is mentally challenged or not is irrelevant. Rather, Chance simply exists. He watches television, is unable or unwilling to function within prescribed cultural paradigms, and finally, is simply a mirror, reflecting back to others sublimated images of desires projected onto him.
Chance is the American Everyman. The events which befall him could befall anyone. He, like all of us, ha...
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Postmodernism movement started in the 1960’s, carrying on until present. James Morley defined the postmodernism movement as “a rejection of the sovereign autonomous individual with an emphasis upon anarchic collective anonymous experience.” In other words, postmodernism rejects what has been established and makes emphasis on combined revolutionary experiences. Postmodernism can be said it is the "derivate" of modernism; it follows most of the same ideas than modernism but resist the very idea of boundaries. According to our lecture notes “Dominant culture uses perception against others to maintain authority.”
Distinctive voices offer many different types of perspectives of the world. This is expressed through the texts “Lady feeding the cats” and “Wombat" written by Douglas Stewart and“Shawshank redemption” also written by Frank Darabont. These notions are applied through exploration of humanity and connections between humanity and the nature. The unique interaction of the world offers us a better understanding of these perceptions.
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While studying under his English expatriate mentor, McKay would have inevitably stumbled across Shakespeare's works and possibly one of his most famous comedies The Merchant of Venice. One of classical theatre's most complex heroines: the cross-dressing heiress, Porti...
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In Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, the reader is given a rather brumal glimpse into the future where “everyone [is] finally equal”. In this world, people are forced to live mediocre lives so they may be “equal”. At the climax of the story the title character escapes prison and executed because he represents everything that society should be. Although Vonnegut’s gallant protagonist isn’t successful in his attempt to “overthrow” the government, he is successful resurrecting things that have been eradicated from society; such as communication, beauty, dance, free will and love.
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The Lottery is one of the American’s most famous short stories, written by the novelist and nonfiction writer Shirley Jackson (1919–1965), published in June 26th of 1948 by The New Yorker for the first time. This story happens in a small town countryside where social and economic aspects were based on Tradition. Shirley “oversee the human behavior” (Votteler, 248) and its “capacity for evil within a contemporary setting” (Cromie,180), and “the danger of the ritualized behavior” (Cromie,180); therefore, what I believe to be the most important, the need to question our traditions specially when it include “victimization of an individual” (Votteler, 248) for social benefit.
Every human being, in addition to having their own personal identity, has a sense of who they are in relation to the larger community--the nation. Postcolonial studies is the attempt to strip away conventional perspective and examine what that national identity might be for a postcolonial subject. To read literature from the perspective of postcolonial studies is to seek out--to listen for, that indigenous, representative voice which can inform the world of the essence of existence as a colonial subject, or as a postcolonial citizen. Postcolonial authors use their literature and poetry to solidify, through criticism and celebration, an emerging national identity, which they have taken on the responsibility of representing. Surely, the reevaluation of national identity is an eventual and essential result of a country gaining independence from a colonial power, or a country emerging from a fledgling settler colony. However, to claim to be representative of that entire identity is a huge undertaking for an author trying to convey a postcolonial message. Each nation, province, island, state, neighborhood and individual is its own unique amalgamation of history, culture, language and tradition. Only by understanding and embracing the idea of cultural hybridity when attempting to explore the concept of national identity can any one individual, or nation, truly hope to understand or communicate the lasting effects of the colonial process.