Apocalypse in twentieth-century literature, film, and cultural texts: The persistence and questioning of the messianic vision

This dissertation examines American literary, film, and cultural texts which incorporate the apocalyptic narrative's features of unveiling and revelation. Although there are a few exceptions--namely the film, Naked by British writer and director Mike Leigh, and the poetry of nineteenth-century French symbolists--most of the literary and film texts included are by twentieth-century American authors. The authors whose primary texts are examined include Paul Theroux, J. O'Barr, Rochelle Owens, Leslie Scalapino, Stephen-Paul Martin, and James Chapman. The genres covered include film, drama, poetry, novel, and graphic novel. The cultural texts fall into two broad categories: first, the apocalyptic narratives of Doomsday cults; and second, the apocalyptic narratives of political and religious polemicists. Specifically, the dissertation examines the texts surrounding David Koresh, the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco and its aftermaths, including the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This dissertation defines the term apocalypse both literally and in its culturally-determined significations in order to propose why and how the narrative has been so widely used. The origins of apocalyptic narratives are explored, and the literary antecedents of twentieth-century American texts are discussed at length. The study identifies the nature and function of the apocalyptic narrative, and it explains different methods used to represent the contrast between an apocalyptic and a non-apocalyptic one. The dissertation discusses why apocalyptic themes are pervasive in twentieth-century American literature and film, and what they indicate about society at large. The scope of this dissertation has been narrowed by focusing on literary, film, and cultural texts in which apocalypse functions simultaneously as a message of revelation, warning, and salvation delivered by a messianic figure.