The Orgy is Over: Phantasies, Fake Realities and the Loss of Boundaries in Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted

This book presents Chuck Palahniuk's 2005 novel Haunted as a portrait of the behavior perceived in significant part of the postmodern Western society, whose values, according to the author himself, correspond to “the opposite of the American Dream”. The main characteristic of such society is the individuals' difficulty while dealing with demands and constant changes in the individual, social and psychological spheres, a recurrent aspect in Palahniuk's work, which is pervaded by marginal characters in a more often than not apparently unconscious search of self-acceptance or social adaptation. The reading proposed is mainly based on the writings of French theoretician Jean Baudrillard, who presents the assumption that the contemporary world is in a “post-orgy” state, haunted by three phantasies he denominates cancer, transvestitism and terrorism, which symbolize contemporary social issues related to politics, sexuality, communication and human relationships, among other aspects. The concepts by Baudrillard that underlie the analysis are: the "post-orgy state‟, "hyperreality‟, "simulation‟, "virulence‟, "seduction‟ and "phantasies‟. The work also presents the features of the literature produced by Chuck Palahniuk and its newly-started critical fortune, highlighting the main aspects of postmodern society present in his works, culminating with an approximation of Haunted to the postmodern variation of Gothic literature, besides a comparison between the dynamics established among the characters in the novel to the one perceived in reality shows and mock-documentaries. The conclusion strengthens aspects in the structure, imaginary and content of the novel that enable the definition of Haunted as portrait and symptom of a new social organization, resulting from the inevitable changes the world goes through.

Didáticos / Técnico / Terror