The genre of islands: Popular fiction and performative geographies

Crane, Ralph; Fletcher, Lisa

doi:10.24043/isj.371

Cited by 9 publications

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“…The recent decades have seen a surge in interest in island literature, in terms of authorship, readership and scholarship. Literary critics have examined the island metaphors as deployed in early Western island literature (Duzer, 2006), in popular fiction (Crane & Fletcher, 2016, in contemporary German-language literature (Dautel & Schödel, 2016), and in poetry (Patke, 2018). Some scholars have made significant contributions in theorizing island literature studies, either in the form of monographs (e.g.…”

Section: Island Food and The Juxtaposition Of Utopia And Dystopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Envisioning a ‘good’ utopia on a dystopian island: culinary and cultural conflicts in Lord of the Flies

Xiao¹,

Chen²

2022

ISJ

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Thanks to the rising interest in island literary studies, there is a considerable body of research on the relationship between islands and utopia/dystopia, but the motif of food, namely, what characters eat on an island, has seldom been explored. Using Terry Eagleton and Frederic Jameson’s theories on utopia and dystopia as an interpretive lens, and drawing upon the varied contentions regarding food and eating by Levi-Strauss, Paul Atkinson, Carol J. Adams and other theorists, this paper examines the triangular relationship of island, food, and utopia/dystopia in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The paper argues that although this island story is generally categorized as dystopian, it blends both utopian and dystopian discourses and represents a literary endeavour to envision a ‘good’ utopia. This argument is supported by a detailed analysis of how the eating practices of the British schoolboys marooned on a desert island parallel their attempts to construct a desirable microcosm. By vividly depicting the boys’ contrasting culinary patterns of gathering fruit and hunting pigs, Golding subverts the hierarchy built upon the opposition between the raw/vegetable and the cooked/meat and their corresponding implications of ‘the barbarous’ and ‘the civilized.’ His further depictions of the boys’ cannibalism and degeneration into savages showcase his vision of human beings’ universal evil, his doubt about the linear progress of Western society, and his caution about the potential disasters that might befall seemingly progressive civilization due to the fall of mankind.

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Section: Island Food and The Juxtaposition Of Utopia And Dystopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Envisioning a ‘good’ utopia on a dystopian island: culinary and cultural conflicts in Lord of the Flies

Xiao¹,

Chen²

2022

ISJ

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“…The island topos, since its origins as a representative trope in European discourse, has encompassed multifarious meanings and functions for and within Western culture and literary imagination (Kinane 2016;Lowenthal, 2007;Gillis, 2004) Flies (1954), island metaphors continue to be frequently deployed in popular fiction (Crane & Fletcher, 2016, literature (Dautel & Schödel, 2017), and poetry (Patke, 2018). There has already been much valuable theorization on island literature both in the form of articles (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

Rethinking utopian and dystopian imagination in island literature and culture

Su¹,

Xiao²,

Zhu³

2022

ISJ

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The trope of the utopian island occurs in a variety of cultural traditions. For example, in the West, the literary imagination of ideal islandness made manifest an imperialist rhetoric and contributed to European exploration and colonization. The tension between utopia and dystopia is an intrinsic feature of Western utopian island imaginations, which were complicit in colonial exploitation and oppression. Western models of island utopias and dystopias have been imposed on non-Western cultures, whose scholars have engaged in decolonial practices by adapting, reshaping, and transforming these conceptualizations. This special section, demonstrating the inherent intercultural qualities of utopian and dystopian island visions from diverse cultural traditions, contributes to decolonization efforts in island studies.

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Realistic and Mythological Appropriations of Nordic Noir: The Cases of Shetland and Ø

Agger

2020

Nordic Noir, Adaptation, Appropriation

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The genre of islands: Popular fiction and performative geographies

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Envisioning a ‘good’ utopia on a dystopian island: culinary and cultural conflicts in Lord of the Flies

Envisioning a ‘good’ utopia on a dystopian island: culinary and cultural conflicts in Lord of the Flies

Rethinking utopian and dystopian imagination in island literature and culture

Realistic and Mythological Appropriations of Nordic Noir: The Cases of Shetland and Ø

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