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William Burroughs’s Fiction Essay This paper will argue that William Burroughs’s fiction is directed at subverting and deconstructing the dominant social order and mainstream conventions and social practices. In such novels as The Western Lands (1987), The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket that Exploded (1962) or The Nova Express (1964) the author constructs full-fledged literary outlaws – gangsters, conmen, etc. – in order to epitomize the forceful and illegitimate ways in which ideas, opinions or the entire reality can be imposed on the ostracized other. Therefore, William Burroughs’ novels also offer a reflection of American capitalist society and its unorthodox power relations. This theme will be investigated in the novel in light of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle which discusses the specular character of the capital society and the gaps between reality and representation. In his article on Burroughs, Frederick M. Dolan argues that   in the writer’s novels, all the rogue figures â€Å"control others by mastering the art of producing vivid and convincing representations, exploiting the naà ¯ve, metaphysical urge to believe that when language appears most meaningful, it has because it has established a referential relationship to the world† (Dolan, p. 536). This is precisely what the â€Å"society of the spectacle† is attempting to achieve by superimposing the show of capitalist order on everyday reality. Burroughs was also very interested in showing the distorting power of language and the ways in which reality can be manipulated because of this. From this perspective, Jacques Derrida’s book, Of Grammatology, will be particularly useful in the analysis of Burroughs’s language treatment and of the ways in which the writer’s deliberate foregrounding of the gaps between signifier and signified undermine the capitalist social order and ingrained thought-mechanisms. Burroughs denounces contemporary man as automaton, as passive receiver of ideology. Works Consulted: Burroughs, William S. The ticket that exploded. Grove Press, 1987. Dolan, Frederick M.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Poetics of Postmodern Subversion: The Politics of Writing in William S. Burroughss The Western Lands†, pp. 534-551. Contemporary Literature  © 1991 University of Wisconsin Press. Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books, 1994. Derrida, Jacques: Of Grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Harris, Oliver (Oliver C. G.). William Burroughs and the secret of fascination.   Southern Illinois University Press, c2003. Lee, Witness. Word virus : the William S. Burroughs reader. Grove Press, 1998. -. Nova express. Grove Press, 1965. -. The soft machine ; Nova express ; The wild boys : three novels. Grove Press, 1988. Lydenberg, Robin. Word cultures : radical theory and practice in William S. Burroughs fiction. University of Illinois Press, 1987.Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998 New York : Zone Books, 1994. New York : Zone Books, 1994. New York : Zone Books, 1994. Morgan, Ted. Literary outlaw : the life and times of William S. Burroughs. H. Holt, 1988. Pepper, Andrew. â€Å"State Power Matters: Power, the State, and Political Struggle in the Post-War American Novel†. Textual Practice, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 467-91, December 2005. Philips, James. â€Å"Life in Space: William Burroughs and the Limits of the Society of Control†. Literature and Aesthetics: The Journal of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 95-112, June 2006. Schneiderman, Davis. Retaking the universe : William S. Burroughs in the age of globalization. Pluto Press, 2004. Sobieszek, Robert A. Ports of entry : William S. Burroughs and the arts. Los Angeles County Museum of Art ; 1996.