Modern Mythology

Introduction to my dissertation

Early into any reading of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Pyscho, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, or Douglas Coupland’s Generation X, the reader may notice a strange feature of the language used in these novels. Intrinsic to the language of these novels is a covert process of ‘mythicization’ designed to marginalize characters and core issues. Roland Barthes understands the structure of myths to be rooted in semiotics, ‘the tri-dimensional pattern… the signifier, the signified and the sign.’ Myths, therefore, act as an adjunct in the semiological chain. In any semiological analysis, the myth is always present, the critic may refuse to acknowledge or understand its presence. The myths buried within the semiological processes of these novels underpins the representational function of these reflexive microcosms of eighties and nineties America.

Generation X considers the ramifications of the post-cold war neoliberal consensus as crucial in mythologizing ‘genuine capital H history times.’ The death of ‘genuine capital H’ history is a sign of the post-cold war neoliberal hegemony and the creeping influence of corporations. This influence is most pronounced through marketing campaigns and the emergent brand culture generated by corporations. Mass marketing, propelled by the eighties explosion of affordable consumer electronics, allowed for the fusion of brand promotion and historic events. The unintended consequence of this fusion is that corporate involvement and association with ‘historic’ moments actively works to mythicize these moments by diluting the individual’s ability to ‘connect’ with or own those moments. Andy, the narrator of Generation X, muses over a time

Before history was turned into a press release, a marketing strategy, and a cynical campaign tool… [Needing] a connection to a past of some importance, however wan the connection. (Coupland, 1992: p. 175)

The excessively corporate-oriented signifiers ‘press release,’ ‘marketing strategy,’ and ‘campaign tool’ denote how corporations have co-opted history to serve as another tool to advance corporate interests. The removal of ‘connection to a past of some importance’ functions to actively mythicize ‘capital H history’ as it creates an environment in which the individual is passively separated from ‘historic’ events. This instigates a paradox; a myth, for Barthes, ‘deprives the object of which it speaks of all history.’ (Barthes, 1972: p. 151) Is it possible to nullify ‘History’? Here the nuance of Coupland’s argument is found. The narration does not display history as having lost all meaning; those events in the past that constitute ‘History’ are still meaningful to the contemporary individual. Rather, in the information age, where news is easily accessible and often comes with corporate sponsors, the value of individual experience with these events is marginally less important. The individual contemporary ‘History’, therefore, becomes marginalized as myth.

American Psycho deviates from Generation X in that Patrick Bateman, the narrator and psychopath, actively works to mystify topical issues for personal prestige. Any analysis considering Patrick Bateman must also consider the deeply ironic sentiments that Ellis embeds into Bateman’s character. Bateman’s mysticism is ironic in its very conception; whilst it does alienate the ‘others’ of the novel, it also alienates Bateman from any sense of meaning — an idea that will be covered in the second chapter. In an early chapter, Bateman grandstands a dinner part with political diatribe.

Well, we have to end apartheid for one. And slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger… We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values and curb graphic sex and violence on TV, in movies, in popular music, everywhere.

Integral to this statement is a sense of superficiality in the treatment of these serious humanitarian issues. Underpinning this superficiality is how little Bateman actually engages with the signifiers of the issues he claims ‘we have to end.’ His diatribe merely lists ‘apartheid’ and ‘slowing down the nuclear arms race’ one after another. This superficiality quickly morphs into irony with Bateman’s suggestions that a ‘return to traditional moral values’ and the removal of ‘graphic sex and violence’ are needed. Bateman’s character is deeply rooted in the reversion of ‘traditional values,’ compelled by a near-fanatical devotion to graphically describe his violent and sexual acts. The sense of irony and superficiality that undermine the validity of the issues Bateman references illustrates the juxtaposition between the sign and signifiers. The sign of this statement, which functions to mythicize these humanitarian issues, is that Bateman is co-opting these humanitarian issues to draw attention to himself. Barthian analysis of myths gives way to paradoxical duality: when the world supplies a ‘historical reality’ myth adds ‘a natural image to this reality;’ yet myth also ‘empt[ies] reality… literally, a ceaseless flowing out.’ (Barthes, 1972: pp. 142–3) How is it possible that something could both supply ‘a natural’ image whilst also ‘emptying’ it? Bateman’s diatribe serves to provide ‘a natural image’ of concern, as though the issues he discusses are somewhat important to him. Yet, Bateman’s real intentions ‘empty’ of any special consideration or concern that Bateman appears to hold for them. Ellis crafts this speech not just to illustrate, and foreshadow, Bateman’s duplicity and moral corruption, but as an ironic parody of contemporary political speech. Though the speaker may refer to a desire to solve key humanitarian issues, their intent, like Bateman’s, is entirely self-serving. True empathy, for Ellis, has become a myth.

The ironic duality behind Bateman’s speech illustrates the complications of analysing the rhetoric of Tyler Durden, Fight Club’s anti-consumerist ideologue. Durden’s rhetoric speaks to the systemic manipulation of the consumer against their own interests. Durden declares that there is

a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don’t really need.

For Durden ‘advertising’ functions much in the same way that this introduction has discussed myths. ‘Advertising’ lends to ‘cars and clothes’ the same ‘natural image’ that myth lends to historical reality; the intention of this ‘image’ being to influence consumers to ‘buy what they don’t really need.’ The similarities between advertising and myths are no surprise given that both function as adjuncts of the semiological process: where myths embellish historical realities, advertising embellishes utility — advertised products being of relatively low ‘need.’ Indeed, for Durden, ‘advertising’ seems to underpin and generate the sense of disillusionment that his rhetoric capitalizes on. This rhetoric shares similar elusive and mystical qualities to that of the ‘advertisements’ that it decries. Durden understands that individuals want to ‘give their lives to something,’ and establishes his own ideology as that ‘something.’ Durden’s intent with this ‘class’ is to ‘put those men in training camps and finish raising them.’ (Palahniuk, 2003: p. 149) The ominous implications of ‘training camps’ and ‘raising’ individuals, injects signs of fascism into Durden’s rhetoric. Whilst Palahniuk uses Durden as a narrative vehicle for social critique on consumerism, he also draws on the uncomfortable parallels between Durden’s emerging misanthropic ideology and extremist political movements. Through both Durden’s initial critique of consumerism, and from the sinister evolution of his ideology, Palahniuk illustrates how mysticism functions as a tool of mass manipulation.

These limited examples of ‘mystification’ are themselves part of a larger, dystopian trend within the narratives of Fight Club, American Psycho and Generation X. This example of ‘myth’ manufacturing illustrates authorial attempts to represent the linguistic effects of contemporary capitalism on the individual. Attempting to understand each author’s representation of contemporary America and capitalism, this dissertation will investigate the complex relationships these novels share with capitalism and interrogate the dystopian aspects of their portrayals of it.