The Spaces of Violence

by James R. Giles

Probes the interrelationship of violence and space in ten contemporary American novels

In The Spaces of Violence , James R. Giles examines ten contemporary American novels for the unique ways in which they explore violence and space as interrelated phenomena. These texts are Russell Banks’s Affliction , Cormac McCarthy’s Outer Dark and Child of God , Lewis Nordan’s Wolf Whistle , Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina , Don DeLillo’s End Zone , Denis Johnson’s Angels , Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer , Robert Stone’s Dog Soldiers , and Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho . A concluding chapter extends the focus to texts by Jane Smiley, Toni Morrison, Edwidge Danticat, and Chuck Palahniuk, who treat the destructive effects of violence on family structures.
 

 

232 pages, Hardcover

First published April 9, 2006

Reviews

[Mayumi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fourth space is a negative extension based on the Soja's conception of third space. Whearas Soja's third space provides a site for contention and resistance for marginalized group and relevant individuals, fourth space offer no way out and the subjects entrapped seek liberation only in death. The author analyzes ten texts to explore how the characters suffer from ontological and symbolic violence unconditionally. The argumentation is not fully convincing, I think. Dorothy Allison's heroine decontructs the masculinity myth of poor whites and establishes new set of normalcy outside social norms about sex orientation. Allison's social space cannot be considered as fourth space, in this sense.