| The American critic Kenneth Rexroth once said,"When you get through with Céline's great classic Journey to the End of Night, you wonder why everybody didn't hang himself. When you finish Burroughs'book you wonder why do don't yourself."William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was named after his paternal grandfather, William Seward Burroughs, the inventor of the adding machine. On the mother's side, the maternal uncle, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, who came from the South and a Calvinist preacher, was the father of public relations. It seems that the writer spent his life career striking back against his heritage for the latter Burroughs has a deep contempt for the platitude of organized religion, combined with a maniacal mistrust for the mechanisms of order. Being a junk addict and homosexual, Burroughs in his mother country was hounded by the police and driven from place to place: busted in New York for forging a prescription, he had moved to Texas; busted in Texas for drunken driving and public indecency, he had gone to New Orleans; busted in New Orleans for possession, he had decided to leave his country. During his twenty-four years of exile, he has traveled South America, Europe and North Africa, and lived the harsh, transient existence of a drug addict for over a decade. When he returned to the United States in 1974 he sees his life's work reflected throughout the society and culture of the late twentieth century. He got titles such as the father of the Beats, the godfather of punk, the man who shot his wife, the junky, the psychic explorer and the self-pronounced queer, the literary outlaw --- all contribute to his high profile. He was admitted into the American Academy and the Institute of Arts and Letters as well as a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.In the dissertation I narrow my discussion on Junkie, Queer, Naked Lunch and the Nova trilogy. I commit my study of the six books with deconstruction as my theoretical basis, for as I will demonstrate in the analysis, Burroughs'writing draws interesting parallel with deconstructionist ideas such as the notion of reality, history, language, time and human body. And I examine the six books by focusing on the disruption of logocentric binarism and in terms of control and decontrol as my thematic concern. I hope to point out in Burroughs'textual practice both the expressive content and formal strategies work towards resistance of control and expansion of consciousness. In"Introduction"I make a brief introduction of Burroughs the man along the spatial shifts, and his major work with the corresponding criticism in chronological order. Then I clarify the books I'm going to examine, state the reason, make it plain that deconstruction is the perspective from which I will do my study, and give a general idea of what in each chapter I'll undertake to do.In"Chapter I Resistance of Theorization"I list ten different approaches of theorization on Burroughs: Morality Controversy, Modernism and Postmodernism, Amodernism, Psychoanalysis, Marxism, Reader Response, Cyberpunk, Queer Theory, Beat Writer, and Culture Studies. I present the fact that critics of different historical periods tend to view Burroughs in the light of their current theoretical trends, but as a matter of fact, Burroughs is anti-theoretical and does not fit in any category of standing criticism completely. I make it plain by demonstrating that the resistance comes either from Burroughs'himself or from other voices in competing for a"correct"interpretation of him. In part II of this chapter, I point it out that Burroughs'textual practice falls into, or is in such an interesting parallel with deconstructionist ideas. Some related key concepts of deconstruction such as metaphysics and logocentrism, binary opposition, trace and différance, signifier and signified, undecidability and iterability, and Derrida's reading of Mallarméand Joyce are examined, which contextualizes and helps understand Burroughs'textual practice.In"Chapter II Deconstructing Dominant Discourse I: Marginalization and Institutionalization"I examine two autobiographical novels of Burroughs: Junkie and Queer. Along the concept of binary opposition, I discuss respectively the junk and queer underworlds both in the realistic and metaphorical sense. I develop the idea that with Burroughs'life experience of engagement with the two underworlds, in his fictional treatment of them both the junk and the queer underworlds hold up a mirror of the mainstream society, in which binary oppositions such as inside/outside, legal/illegal, possessing/possessed, control/decontrol not only exist as in the other world but the demarcation lines between them are constantly obscured; the rules such as"the Algebra of Need"applicable to the junk and queer worlds find themselves universal in the so-called world of integrity and purity. In the world of Burroughs, junk becomes a sliding signifier in the chain of signification, going from one signified to another, hence facilitating Burroughs'making a comprehensive critique of capitalism from the aspects of politics, economy, science and technology, culture and so on.In"Chapter III Deconstructing Dominant Discourse II: Control/Decontrol in Burroughsian World"I go into the details of Naked Lunch and the Nova trilogy. I emphasize in Naked Lunch the thematic addiction of control from the perspectives of economy, politics, science, and culture, while in Nova trilogy a thematic analysis in terms of deconditioning becomes the focus as each title of this section indicates:"Destroying Mayan Calendar as a Means of Control in The Soft Machine,""Retake the Universe: Nova Express"and"Explode The Ticket in The Ticket That Explode."It is pointed out that, like junk and sex, the addiction to control is an all-pervasive desire, and the fight for decontrol is sure to be a relentless aspiration.In"Chapter IV Deconstruction at Work I: Dismantling and Rebuilding"I make a conclusion of the books I've discussed so far viewed from deconstruction in four aspects: human body, reality, time and language. In his textual practice Burroughs practices what a deconstructionist preaches by trying to break out of the logocentric thought, making reflection upon the institutional framework. I undertake to demonstrate in the books Burroughs dismantles the logocentric body by showing us monolithic, autonomous nature attributed to the idea of body with organic wholeness and purity is one constructed by Western metaphysics. To elucidate this point more clearly, I rely on two concepts of"virus"and"parasite"in Burroughs'texts to draw the conclusion that the body with individual and separate identity does not exist, and any bodily state is itself only a response to a controlling presence. Burroughs also makes it plain that the so-called logocentric reality is one manufactured artificially, a pseudo-reality, which is used to enslave people and maintain the status quo. He holds that reality is simply a more or less constant scanning pattern in the film studio, and he makes frequent recourse in his texts to the image of the agents who led people in attacking every form of control stepping out of the burning reality-film. Burroughs warns his readers,"It's time to forget. To forget time."For him, the concept of time is adopted to serve the absolute reason and to mode our minds, on the basis of which history is built not as a process of development but as a rigidly determined succession of abstract and eternal structures. As to language, he calls on to"rub out the word"for"What we call history is the history of the word."He points it out that it imprisons people in material bodies and assimilates individuals into a social order that is organized to benefit the controllers. Burroughs insists that his quest is the dissolution of all apparent dualisms and with particular strategies he employs he hopes to defeat those in control and approximate the ultimate state of complete freedom.In"Chapter V Deconstruction at Work II: Resistance of Language and Expansion of Consciousness"I discuss Burroughs'theory of language and his practice with language, especially his experiments of cut-ups. Theoretically, Burroughs is influenced by Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics. I present three strategies he employs in resistance of language in practice: silence, picture and the cut-up method. In particular, I make an explanation of his application of cut-ups with writing. I point it out that with cut-ups Burroughs deconstructs the logocentric notion of writing, which I approach from the following two aspects: deconstructing the notion of originality and writing at the limit. Besides writing, Burroughs extends the use of cut-ups to tape-recorder, film and painting. Burroughs believes the cut-up method introduces elements of randomness and irreversibility, and is our way of perception and true to our consciousness. I hope to point it out that for Burroughs, cut-ups not only destroy habitual linguistic and narrative structures, but also help develop a new mode of consciousness. Burroughs'attack is really on the whole method of constructing meanings, particularly in the Western world. To sum up, Burroughs'practice of cut-ups with the transgression of limits undoes the logocentric foundation which has contained people all the time and helps achieve a new perception of the world.In"Conclusion"I sum up Burroughs'life and his ideas as revealed in his writing. His view of the capitalist society all starts from his personal entanglement with drug and homosexuality. What he sees in the socially marginalized and politically demonized world driven by profits and needs is a mirror of the monolithic capitalist world in reality. In my opinion, whether labeled as a Utopian or nihilist, Burroughs demonstrates the passion which compels literature to move beyond its accepted limits. Burroughs'speculation on the nature of Western civilization's predicament is serious. His intensity as released in his work may be appalling, even disgusting with a weird mix of paranoia, violence, drug use and teenage homoerotic sexual fantasy, yet his desire to transcend controls of various forms and his commitment in experiments in achieving this goal truly deserve our respect. If his work does not help create a new human personality, it at least forces us to reconsider the traditional terms of literature. Then, I admit that the paradox lies in the impossibility of exempting himself from the terms of his own critique. And I remind readers that the function of cut-ups should not be overstated and an objective attitude is what should be adopted. I also express my doubt about the ultimate freedom Burroughs aspires. Last, I declare my stand in studying Burroughs the man and writer, and make an explanation for locating him as the object of my study.
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