Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Seduction and Death in Muriel Spark's Fiction

Seduction and Death in Muriel Spark's Fiction

Apostolou, Fotini E.
Apostolou, Photeine

Hardcover

Series: Contributions to the Study of World Literature, Book 107

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 0313316511
ISBN13: 9780313316517
Publisher: Praeger
Published: Jul 30 2001
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.91
Height: 0.66 Width: 6.32 Depth: 9.48
Language: English

Muriel Spark's works often consider the seductive and destructive power of social structures, such as religion and education. These structures lure Spark's characters with their promise of power. But after entering the structure's domain to exploit the mastery it offers, the characters are imprisoned by rules and codes. Through a postmodern reading of Spark's works, such as The Comforters (1957), The Public Image (1968), The Driver's Seat (1970), Reality and Dreams (1996), and Aiding and Abetting (2000), this book analyzes the role of certain social structures in her fiction.

The volume argues that these attractions and destructions are very much like postmodern critical games with structures that are open to any experimentation, but at the same time seem fixed and unchanging. Within this postmodern context, one is free to play games with signs and systems of rules. Spark's characters enter these games in a playful mood and test their limits. The texts, images, and spectacles haunt their victims, who are unable to escape the process of attraction and destruction. The characters are eventually led to their death-literal or metaphoric-which will inevitably introduce them to a new beginning.

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