The frontier myth and the frontier thesis in contemporary genre fiction
Abstract
The aim of this dissertation is to investigate how City of Glass, No Country for Old Men, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Mason & Dixon invoke various aspects of the frontier myth. City of Glass evokes the myth by illustrating its drive for order, Adamic innocence and rebirth. It visions a New World and a regenerated man (new Adam) of civilization and order from an Old World of savagery and chaos. No Country for Old Men dramatizes the Old World vs. New World paradigm of the frontier myth. This is achieved by depicting a frontier figure who is born out of the combination of the traditionalism of the Old World and the savagery of the New World. He is a figure who not only expresses frontier values such as free will and rugged individualism but also participates in the American Dream. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? engages with the frontier myth by problematizing central factors of the frontier model of economy-capitalism. The novel charters the (unequal) position of the androids as a way of providing socioeconomic-political advantages to humans within capitalistic economy. By the linkage between myth and reality through myth-narrator's myth-making vision, Mason & Dixon's narrative recapitulates the symbolic essence of America inherent in the frontier myth that transfigures American history into American romance, allegory, and myth. This dissertation allows us to understand how postmodern and contemporary genre fiction invests its attention to the (seemingly obsolete) frontier myth and tradition.
Degree
Ph. D.
Thesis Department
Rights
OpenAccess.
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