This document discusses William Saroyan's short stories and how they can be seen as resisting mainstream American culture during the Great Depression. Specifically, it analyzes how Saroyan's characters like eccentric fools and stubborn dreamers undermine values of mass consumption society like the myth of success. Through absurd dreams and defiance of rules, Saroyan's "fruitcakes" proudly show an odd identity compared to the homogenizing world. The analysis aims to show how Saroyan's fiction employed a "reverse discourse" that questioned the conformity of the average American through non-conforming characters.
This document discusses William Saroyan's short stories and how they can be seen as resisting mainstream American culture during the Great Depression. Specifically, it analyzes how Saroyan's characters like eccentric fools and stubborn dreamers undermine values of mass consumption society like the myth of success. Through absurd dreams and defiance of rules, Saroyan's "fruitcakes" proudly show an odd identity compared to the homogenizing world. The analysis aims to show how Saroyan's fiction employed a "reverse discourse" that questioned the conformity of the average American through non-conforming characters.
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This document discusses William Saroyan's short stories and how they can be seen as resisting mainstream American culture during the Great Depression. Specifically, it analyzes how Saroyan's characters like eccentric fools and stubborn dreamers undermine values of mass consumption society like the myth of success. Through absurd dreams and defiance of rules, Saroyan's "fruitcakes" proudly show an odd identity compared to the homogenizing world. The analysis aims to show how Saroyan's fiction employed a "reverse discourse" that questioned the conformity of the average American through non-conforming characters.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Saroyans Lonely Fruitcakes, and other Goofs: Strategies of Resistance to the Culture of Abundance Mauricio D.
Aguilera Linde University of Granada, Spain aguilera@ugr.es
Unlike Sherwood Anderson s grotes!ues and "arson Mc"ullers s freaks, conde#ned to live ostraci$ed, despite their failing atte#pts to %elong and co##unicate, Saroyan s fruitcakes pursue a%surd drea#s, defy rules and conventions, and feel proud of their odd identity in a ho#ogenising, difference&levelling world. 'n ()orsey Gorsey and the *rog+ ,-./01, an apparently innocent, children s tale, the writer condenses, in a nutshell, his criti!ue of the do#inant culture of a%undance ,Sus#an -.023 4arnard -..51. 6hrough a detailed revision of his narrative, #ostly the stories pu%lished during the Great Depression, ' ai# to show that Saroyan s short fiction, peopled %y eccentric fools and diehard drea#ers, can %e read as an atte#pt to contradict, su%vert, or resist the values and institutions of #ass consu#ption society7 the #yth of success and personality, and the u%i!uitous influence of #ovies and ads. Saroyan s short stories un#ask the average A#erican citi$en s confor#ist aspirations through a (reverse+ discourse or counter&discourse ,*oucault -.801 which de%unks the legiti#acy of the hege#onic ideology.