The Role of Popular Mythology and Popular Culture in Post-war America, as represented by four novels ...

[Dave Monroe]

Title:  The Role of Popular Mythology and Popular Culture in Post-war
America, as represented by four novels - The Floating Opera and The
End of the Road, by John Barth, White Noise, by Don DeLillo, and
Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon.
 Authors:  Reed, Mark Dobson
Keywords:  Popular culture;John Barth;The Floating Opera;The End of
the Road;Don DeLillo;White Noise;Thomas Pynchon;Vineland;American
Literature
Issue Date:  27-Mar-2006
Publisher:  University of Sydney. English


Abstract:  The four novels - The Floating Opera, The End of the Road,
White Noise, and Vineland - are representative of the cultural shift
away from traditional moral concepts after World War II. Popular
culture has increasingly become the guiding force for the continuation
of American society, and in Don DeLillo�s White Noise, popular culture
and its creation of myth (according to the author�s representation of
America) has become embedded in the system and life of contemporary
America. John Barth�s novel The End of the Road and its predecessor
The Floating Opera are important in any discussion of the role of
popular culture and popular mythology in post-war America. They both
appear to signal an end to sincere intellectual thought or debate, and
the notion of imposing a rational moral world upon the social
landscape surrounding the individual. The Floating Opera explores the
common tendency of society to avoid difficult intellectual struggles,
and the central character and first-person narrator ultimately
realises that questions about the nature of existence are of no
objective value. In The End of the Road the character Jacob Horner
adopts a superficial reflection of pre-existing rules and social
conventions. Together these novels reflect much of what is at present
understood as the postmodern aesthetic, and are indicative of many of
the changes in America that were about to occur. The Floating Opera
was published in 1956 and The End of the Road was published in 1958,
but they are still highly relevant beyond the period in which they
were written. White Noise (1984) portrays a system founded on the
Hollywood mythology, and the superficial reflection of pre-existing
rules and social conventions found in The End of the Road. The novel
revolves around the experiences of the narrator, Jack Gladney, a
university lecturer who teaches Hitler studies at Blacksmith College,
and his wife Babette. The course which he teaches on Hitler is
influenced by Hollywood myth, and the novel portrays a consumer-based
society that has lost much of the firm moral basis which traditional
religious concepts formerly supplied. The role of television,
Hollywood, and the idea of simulation are all explored throughout the
novel and are important forces in any examination of post-war American
society. Finally, in Vineland (1990) the social upheavals which
occurred during the late �60s and early �70s are explored from the
perspective of the 1980s. The novel refers to a vast array of images
and icons from popular culture, and the brief youth rebellion, in the
late �60s, which failed to inspire any final social revolution. The
result of this failed social revolution is a landscape of popular
culture in modern America, where Godzilla leaves footprints in Japan
and popular mythology from television or pulp novels coincides with
everyday life. There are references in typical Pynchonesque fashion to
those who must necessarily be orchestrating these social and cultural
alterations, but they, as specific individuals, remain anonymous or
hidden from the scope of the author (although, as in White Noise,
there are deliberate references to the CIA and other agencies or
departments within the U.S. Federal Government). Vineland is
important, therefore, both as an account of the social changes which
occurred in America between the late �60s and �80s, and the increasing
role of popular culture in America. These four novels form the basis
of an exploration of the role of popular mythology and popular culture
in post-war America. They form a clear progression, and allow a
detailed analysis of the social and cultural changes which
contemporary America has undergone since the end of World War II.

URI:  http://hdl.handle.net/2123/627

Appears in Collections: Sydney Digital Theses

http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/627/1/adt-NU20050506.16055101front.pdf

http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/bitstream/2123/627/2/adt-NU20050506.16055102whole.pdf