William Seward Burroughs Essay Example

the structuralist definition of language and reality as an arbitrary system of signs – ultimately, the reality script itself appears as just one sign in this system whose expansion and existence has come to elude its very creators.

Burroughs seems to intend to lay bare the artificiality of the society and the ways in which master discourses can take over and control humans’ perception of reality, as well as shatter a firm sense of identity. In Burroughs’ world, man has become an automaton, with pre-established tasks and preferences, so engrossed in the carrying out of the functions prescribed by the “reality script” that he can no longer recognize his alternative status: puppet and spectator.The same features become apparent when investigating the nature of the space and of the cityscapes present in Burroughs’ novels. The postmodern city, as defined by Frederic Jameson, is a palimpsest of surfaces, with no profound hold of reality or history.

In his novels, Burroughs’ underlines this superficiality of the spectacular city by creating desolate landscapes which bear only vague traces of human life.One of the surprising results of this research paper was Burroughs’ extreme clarity of anticipation as concerns postmodernist capitalist society, as his vision informs and complements very well the theories of the postmodern production of space. Possibly, the best realization of this paper has been this dialogue that was created between Burroughs’ visions of the American capitalist society and contemporary theoretical interpretations.