Stephen Dixon's Novels: Autobiographicality as Transgression

The idea advanced in the paper is to theorize the mechanisms of autobiographicality in Stephen Dixon’s novels that are viewed as a radical renewal of autobiographical narrative, where the modality of disappearance/return of the subject produces a new mode of life-writing. We propose the term “autobiographical transgression” to capture the essence of this renewal started by three representative figures – John Barth, Stephen Dixon, and Joseph Heller that can be reduced neither to autobiography as a genre, nor to “transgressive autobiography” as its generic variant. Dixon finds a new form for representing autos. He creates the character with the name-deixis I. that personifies a fiduciary subject, thus, suggesting a provocative restatement of postmodernist generic problems. In the novels I. and End of I. the autobiographical hero I. exists simultaneously as a metaphor of the author’s presence in the text, as the subjective author’s I and as a character in the novel − an objectified, semi-functional, distancing I. The transplanting of life experience manifests itself in a special kind of repersonalization and double coding of the traditional autobiographical subject.

THE ABSURDITY OF HUMAN AND REALITY IN THE NOVEL “CATCH-22” OF JOSEPH HELLER

“Catch-22” is considered one of the American writer Joseph Heller’s greatest novels. It was published in 1961. Joseph Heller combined the irrational sensations, the mocking and satirical tones to describe a collapsed and degenerate world in the postmodern condition. Through the living background of an American military unit of World War II, the author reflected some absurd problems such as: the distortion of justice, the influence of greed, and the issue of personal integrity. This article focuses on analyzing the absurdity of character imagery and reality that is automatically accepted and followed in postmodern condition. As a result, readers can gain a deeper insight into the novel and seek empathy in the perception about the absurd, which is becoming normal in recently.

Does the Inviolability of Archives Lead to a Catch-22 Situation?

A diferencia de la novela de Joseph Heller ‘Trampa 22’, la situación ilógica o paradójica que surge del privilegio de inviolabilidad de los archivos dentro de la cooperación de organizaciones internacionales con autoridades nacionales en el marco de la lucha contra el fraude y la corrupción es uno de los diferentes órdenes jurídicos que no necesariamente están alineados desde el principio. Las autoridades nacionales tienen que respetar la inviolabilidad de los archivos de organizaciones internacionales y no pueden ni interpretar el privilegio de manera restrictiva, sin tomar en cuenta al mismo tiempo su propósito, que es la operación ordenada e independiente de las organizaciones internacionales; y tampoco limitar el privilegio de alguna otra manera. Por lo tanto, queda en manos de las organizaciones internacionales en sí mismas el limitar el riesgo de una situación de Trampa 22, al cumplir con su deber de cooperar con autoridades nacionales. Sin embargo, la carga de la prueba no solo recae en lasorganizaciones internacionales. Cualquier uso razonable del privilegio presupone que las autoridades nacionales reconocen su existencia y la abordan de manera respetuosa.

Deshumanización y destino en las narrativas bélicas de Joseph Heller y Norman Mailer: Coincidencias entre Match-22 y The Nacked and the Dead

ResumenLa segunda guerra mundial y los años posteriores a la misma dieron paso a un nuevo orden mundial en el que las personas, a merced de una alienante maquinaria social, experimentaron un progresivo deterioro de sus rasgos humanos. Las dos novelas estudiadas en el presente artículo abordan esta temática desde perspectivas distintas, pero con abundantes rasgos en común. Catch-22 utiliza fórmulas humorísticas y satíricas, mientras que The Naked and the Dead emplea un tono más sobrio y solemne. En dichas obras destacan los ambientes mecanicistas que anulan al ser humano, junto a la inexorable acción del destino o la fatalidad.Palabras clave: Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, guerra, deshumanización, mecanicismo, entropía, destino.AbstractWorld War II and its aftermath gave way to a new world order and a mechanised society in which people progressively began losing both their human and humane traits. The two novels considered in the present study deal with these matters from different general viewpoints, but revealing several common features as well. Catch-22 uses humour and satire in its approach, whereas The Naked and the Dead adopts a more refl ective discourse of solemnity. Both works refer to mechanised environments that nullify human condition and render it insignifi cant, as they also focus on the element of destiny or fate.Key words: Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, war, dehumanisation, mechanistic, entropy, destiny.

TREATMENT OF DEATH IN NORMAN MAILER'S AN AMERICAN DREAM

ABSTRACTIn the following article I show that in Norman Mailer's novel An American Dream cancer is everywhere. Cancer is used by Mailer to express universal madness. There is not one single instance of love in the whole book. Love is as real as murder and it has more power. Love becomes death. But there is only one instance in the novel where love seems to appear and that is in the honest attempt of the writer to convey the significance of that death. Norman Mailer loves his country. And like Joseph Heller, he is saying that Something Happened to America.