<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><bold></bold> My paper discusses the construction of character in some American experimental narratives within the optical paradigm of the vanishing point. In a first part the investment of the pictorial notion of the vanishing point in Faulkner’s Light in August will be discussed as an instance of the occasional confrontation in Modernist fiction of the limits of literary representation, even if the pictorial category is adapted (and so limited) to the specific issue of biracial identity. In a second part, William Gass’s short story “Mrs. Mean” and Paul Auster’s The Locked Room will be examined as instances of a sustained critical recasting of the very concept of character. The trope of the vanishing point is consciously deployed in both texts to reinvent fictional character within the challenging scope of borderlines between presence and absence, the life-like (mimetic) and the purely verbal.</p></abstract>

My paper discusses the construction of character in some American experimental narratives within the optical paradigm of the vanishing point. In a first part the investment of the pictorial notion of the vanishing point in Faulkner’s Light in August will be discussed as an instance of the occasional confrontation in Modernist fiction of the limits of literary representation, even if the pictorial category is adapted (and so limited) to the specific issue of biracial identity. In a second part, William Gass’s short story “Mrs. Mean” and Paul Auster’s The Locked Room will be examined as instances of a sustained critical recasting of the very concept of character. The trope of the vanishing point is consciously deployed in both texts to reinvent fictional character within the challenging scope of borderlines between presence and absence, the life-like (mimetic) and the purely verbal.

Character as a Vanishing Point in American Experimental Fiction

American, British and Canadian Studies

{"article-title":"Character as a Vanishing Point in American Experimental Fiction"}

My paper discusses the construction of character in some American experimental narratives within the optical paradigm of the vanishing point. In a first part...

Character as a Vanishing Point in American Experimental Fiction

Published Online: May 01, 2013

Page range: 56 - 76

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2013-0004

Keywords
Modernism, Postmodernism, characterization and character in fiction, pictorial language, vanishing point, literary representation, William Faulkner, Paul Auster, William Gass

This content is open access.

Character as a Vanishing Point in American Experimental Fiction

Published Online: May 01, 2013

Page range: 56 - 76

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2013-0004

KeywordsModernism, Postmodernism, characterization and character in fiction, pictorial language, vanishing point, literary representation, William Faulkner, Paul Auster, William Gass

This content is open access.

Keywords
Modernism, Postmodernism, characterization and character in fiction, pictorial language, vanishing point, literary representation, William Faulkner, Paul Auster, William Gass