An Interpretation Of Second Skin From The Perspective Of Jameson’s Postmodernism

Acclaimed as a forerunner of American postmodernist novels, John Hawkes hasestablished his status in the history of the post-World War II American literature withhis outstanding originality in the artistic skills and creative thoughts, thus becomingthe model of independent artists. John Hawkes is a passionate artist devoting himselfinto experimental creativity. He challenges the established representation of realismand aggressively pursues the nightmarish, the comic, the disruptive and the irrational.Second Skin, one of John Hawkes’ postmodernist representative works, depicts atragic self-told life story of a retired naval lieutenant named Skipper in the form ofconstantly recalling the fragmental memories of his “naked history” and Skipper hasrealized his life significance. Such postmodernist artistic characteristics as chaoticspace and time and indeterminate symbolic images own the characteristics ofpostmodern ideology. From the perspective of Jameson’s postmodernism, this thesisattempts to interpret Second Skin.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces JohnHawke’s life experiences, works and his literature achievements and then proposes theresearch thought, research approach and research significance of the thesis afterstudying the literature review home and abroad. Chapter Two discusses FredricJameson’s postmodern thoughts, Jameson’s postmodern cultural theory in particular,among which defines the split subject in Jameson’s view and Jameson’s utopianthoughts. Chapter Three analyzes the protagonist’s spilt personalities, split plotarrangement and split symbolic images by employing Fredric Jameson’s split subjecttheory. Chapter Four further probes into the reflections of utopian thoughts in SecondSkin, including the construction and the significance of a utopian world. Theapproaches to constructing a utopian world include coexistence of gentle island andwandering island, juxtaposition of humor and horror and “cut-in” narration. ChapterFive concludes that through his creation of Second Skin and the reflections of splitsubject in it, John Hawkes creates an idealized world in a spiritual way and people’sutopian awareness can be aroused.