Nihilist Aesthetics
The Destruction and Salvage of Meaning in the Poststructuralist Novel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36399/GroundingsUG.10.187Keywords:
Postmodernism, J. G. Ballard, Crash, Tom McCarthy, C, Nihilism, Poststructuralism, Vattimo, MeaningAbstract
Drawing upon continental philosophy and literary theory of the 20th and 21st centuries, this article examines the destabilisation of textual hermeneutics under poststructuralism. As meaning in language is destabilised, a crisis occurs in which it threatens to evaporate entirely. The nihilism of Gianni Vattimo is used as a backdrop to a discussion of the nihilist implications of postmodern philosophy. Through an examination of two postmodernist texts – Crash by J. G. Ballard and C by Tom McCarthy – this article seeks to illustrate this central nihilistic crisis of the postmodern condition, as well as the affirmative responses formulated by those who choose to embrace this state of affairs, rather than deny it. Theorists such as Lyotard and Derrida give an account of the emergence of meaning within the destabilised linguistics of poststructuralism, and in doing so they display the potential for an affirmative formulation of nihilism. Through this depiction of the salvage of meaning after its apparent annihilation, this article ultimately attempts to define the key aspects of a distinctly nihilist postmodern aesthetic.
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