An Interpretation Of Second Skin From The Perspective Of Postmodern Cultural Theory

John Hawkes, a writer of highly experimental, nightmarish fiction, is one of the most original and uncompromising artists to come out of the post-World War II generation of writers. Challenging established American fiction with its limitations of realism, he aggressively pursues the irrational, the erotic, the disruptive, and the comic. For nearly fifty years Hawkes has been honored as a master of the American novel, viewed by many critics as one of the landmark figures of 20th century American literature. Combining unflinching descriptions of suffering with his sense of beauty, Hawkes is a master of nimble and sensuous prose who makes the awful and mundane fantastic, and occasionally makes the fantastic surreal. John Barth has once praised him that "in the landscape of our fiction he stands improbably as Gibraltar:unaccountable, astonishing, formidable, sui generis, and self-sufficient, at once familiar and exotic. There is not one (any contemporary American writer) I more admire."Second Skin is a novel by Hawkes published in 1964, and it was nominated by National Book Award in 1965. Although this book did not win the award, it still remained an important role in the writing career of John Hawkes, because with the novel Second Skin, Hawkes shifted from the darkly Gothic to a more comic and absurd treatment of the world. The story is told in the first person by a fifty-nine-year-old ex-Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade. His name is Edward, though other characters usually call him Skipper. The protagonist, throughout the whole book, is writing the "naked history", suicide of his father, mother, and wife, his son-in-law's being killed, his unsuccessful attempts to prevent the suicide of his daughter, Cassandra, on a cold and cruel island after Skipper's return from his tour of wartime duty in the South Pacific. The narrator finally finds shelter in a tropical island with his black mess boy, Sonny, and his lover Catalina Kate, where he works as an artificial inseminator of cows, and attempts to reclaim the innocence with which he faced the tragedies of his earlier life, though it is not clear if the scenes on the island are even real or simply imagined.In order to get a general idea of the artistic presentation from the viewpoint of Fredric Jameson's postmodern theory, this thesis employs seven parts to develop the discussion. In the Introduction part, a detailed introduction of the author John Hawkes and the novel Second Skin on which we will focus is given, and a literature review on this novel and topic review are also specified. Chapter One is introduction of the point of view from which this thesis unfolds its analysis. This chapter offers the developments of postmodernism and its theory and among them the most important is Fredric Jameson's Postmodern Theory. In addition, several characteristics or terms in Jameson's theory are given for supporting the following analysis of the Second Skin text. From chapter Two to chapter Five is the main body of this thesis, and all these chapters are based on the fact that Skipper, narrator of this book, may be an unreliable narrator, therefore, the readers have the right to question his discourse. Chapter Two is developed by means of what Jameson calls "crisis in historicity" and its consequent presentation of Postmodern Pastiche and The Loss of Individual Memory. Chapter Three is on the basis of alienation which Jameson uses to describe postmodern society, and it mainly focuses on the Skipper, a representative of postmodern alienated figures, his control over his daughter and wife and the death of the latter as a resistance against him. The fourth chapter The Split Subject involves the analysis from two respects of the novel. The first is split narrative structure and the second is split characters in Second Skin. The fifth chapter Second Skin:A Utopian World copes mainly with the protagonist's peaceful life on the wandering island. Through details of his narration of life on this island, we can perceive that the wandering island is merely a Utopian world created by Skipper, and further to explore the reasons. Combining with Jameson's dissertation on Utopia, we get the possibility of apprehending the significance of Utopia, including the desire for a better world and negation of reality, and additionally understanding the final concern from the author John Hawkes about human beings in postmodern despair. Finally, the last part serves as a conclusion of the whole thesis, claiming that from the perspective of Jameson's postmodern theory, a whole new reading and understanding of Second Skin takes on in front of the old readers.