Postmodern Paranoia, Schizophrenia, and Social Justice in Don DeLillo’s Libra

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Candidate of English Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

10.34785/J014.2022.263

Abstract

The present article attempts to demonstrate how Don DeLillo’s Libra addresses the lack of social justice because of the domination of paranoia and conspiracy in the contemporary American society. John Rawls, the late Harvard University professor, has written about a just society and a utopian world in his major works. In Libra, DeLillo explores the assassination of Kennedy by Oswald and its adverse effect on society in general. In this novel, paranoia is experienced as paranoid schizophrenia, in which sufferers exhibit traits of both of them. Although Libra is based on historical events and real-life figures, it is not an attempt to produce a historically accurate version of these events. DeLillo does not aim to explain what really happened on that day, or establish an unequivocally true account of the assassination conspiracy. Rather, he uses the character of the conspirator Everett’s young daughter Suzanne to portray the disturbing paranoid state. By combining fragmented reality and evoked paranoid responses DeLillo is producing a work of literature by illustrating how this paranoid schizophrenia breeds social disease. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to illustrate there is no social justice in this paranoid postmodern world.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

  1. Bloom, Harold, ed. Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Chelsea House Publishers, 2003.

    Bukowski, Danielle. “Paranoia and Schizophrenia in Postmodern Literature: Pynchon and DeLillo.” (2014).

    Coale, Samuel Chase. Paradigms of Paranoia: The Culture of Conspiracy in Contemporary American Fiction. University of Alabama Press, 2019.

    DeLillo, Don. Libra. New York: Penguin Books, Ltd, 1988.

    Dewey, Joseph. “Narratives of Redemption.” Beyond Grief and Nothing: A Reading of Don DeLillo. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006. 92-105. Print.

    Duvall, John N. The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

    Farrell, John. Paranoia and Modernity. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Print.

    Freeman, Daniel, and Jason Freeman. Paranoia: The 21st century fear. Oxford University Press, 2008.

    Green, Jeremy. “Libra.” The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. 94-107. Print.

    Hornby, A. S. “Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 8th Edition Oxford University Press.”  (2010).

    International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) Version for 2010. “Chapter V, Mental and Behavioual Disorders (F00-F99).” Apps.who.int/classifications/icd10. World Health Organization, 2010. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

    Jameson, Fredrick. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society: The Death of the Subject” in.” 4 Knight, ‘DeLillo, postmodernism, postmodernity’, pp. 39, 27.

    McClure, John A. “Postmodern Romance: Don DeLillo and the Age of Conspiracy.”     Introducing Don DeLillo. Ed. Frank Lentricchia. Durham: Duke University Press,

    1. (99-115). Print.

    Mailer, Norman. The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History. New York: Signet, 1968.

    ---. Oswald’s Tale: An American Mystery. Random House, 2007.

    Mayo Clinic Staff. “Paranoid Schizophrenia: Definition.” Mayoclinic.com. Mayo Clinic, 16 Dec.

    Melley, Timothy. “Brain Warfare: The Covert Sphere, Terrorism, and the Legacy of     Cold War.” Grey Room 45 (2011): 18–39.

    ---. Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America. Ithaca, NY:     Cornell University Press, 2000.

    O’Donnell, Patrick. Latent Destinies: Cultural Paranoia and Contemporary U.S. Narrative. Sandlin, Jennifer A., and Jason J. Wallin, eds. Paranoid pedagogies: Education, culture, and paranoia. Springer, 2017.

    Rawls, John. A theory of justice. Harvard university press, 2009.

    ---. Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, 2005.

    ---. The law of peoples. Harvard University Press, 1999.

    Walker, Jesse. The United States of paranoia: A conspiracy theory. Harper Collins, 2014.

    Whelan, Ashleigh. “For the future: An examination of conspiracy and terror in the works of Don DeLillo.” Master of Arts Thesis. Georgia State University, 2011.

Critical Literary Studies
Volume 4, Issue 1 - Serial Number 7
March 2022
Pages 147-161

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 31 March 2021
  • Revise Date: 16 August 2021
  • Accept Date: 26 November 2021

Share

How to cite

Statistics