Workshop on Contemporary

8/8/2019 Workshop on Contemporary

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Workshop on Contemporary American Literature

Provide an interpretation of the postmodern story Edickinson RepliLuxe in the light of

intertextuality. In your answer, articulate the poems by Dickinson and by Silvia Plath and

determine their resonance or impact in the story.

A text is ³woven entirely with citations, references, echoes, cultural languages(what language is not?)

antecedent or contemporary, which cut across it through and through in a vast stereophony.

The intertextual in which every text is held, it i tself being the text-between of another text(«)

the citations which go to make up a text are anonymous, untraceable, and yet already read :

they are quotations without inverted commas´

Roland Barthes (Barthes, 1977a: 160)

The term intertextuality was coined by Julia Kristeva in the 60's. Her ideas are based on

Mijaíl Bajtín¶s conception of language as dialogic in nature:

"Los enunciados no son indiferentes uno a otro ni son autosuficientes, sino que "saben" uno del otro

y se reflejan mutuamente. Estos reflejos recíprocos son los que determinan el carácter del

enunciado. Cada enunciado está lleno de ecos y de reflejos de otros enunciados con los cuales se

relaciona por la comunidad de esfera de la comunicación discursiva. («)Uno no puede determinar

su propia postura sin correlacionarla con la de otros." (Bajtín, 1997: 281)

He conceived the literary word as a dialogue among several writings: that of the writer, the

addressee (or the character) and the contemporary or earlier cultural contexts. By the same

token, Julia Kristeva, advances three dimensions of textual space; writing subject,

addressee, and exterior texts. Understood as such, the notion of intertextuality implies that

the text is inserted in a social and historical context and at the same time, the history of

society is inserted in the text.

Taking into account this brief definition of intertextuality, we believe that Oates¶

Edickinson RepliLuxe is an attempt to show the implications of a particular tendency,

historical period, social trend, movement; namely, postmodernism. In order to do this, the

main ³quotations without inverted commas´ that resonate throughout the story are the ideas

by Jean Baudrillard, particularly that of the simulation and simulacra:



³ What has happened in postmodern culture is that our society has become so reliant on models and

maps that we have lost all contact with the real world that preceded the map. Reality itself has

begun merely to imitate the model, which now precedes and determines the real world.´ (Felluga)

And also that of the consumer society:

"Our society thinks itself and speaks itself as a consumer society. As much as it consumes anything,

it consumes itself as consumer society, as idea.´ (Baudrillard,1998)

"This proliferation of kitsch, which is produced by industrial reproduction and the vulgarization at

the level of objects of distinctive signs taken from all registers (the bygone, the 'neo', the exotic, the

folksy, the futuristic) and from a disordered excess of 'ready-made' signs, has its basis, like 'mass

culture', in the sociological reality of the consumer society." (Baudrillard,1998)

A clear example of mass reproduction is that of the Repliluxes in Oates¶s story. Emily

Dickinson is brought back to life over and over again (everytime somebody buys a

Repliluxe doll). This bears resemblance with the idea of rebirth shown in Sylvia Plath¶s

Lady Lazarus. The revival is described as a kind of spectacle presented in front of an

audience,³ the peanut-crunching crowd´. This image goes hand in hand with the one

introduced in EDickinson Repliluxe.

What a million filaments.

The Peanut-crunching crowd

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot ------

The big strip tease.

Gentleman , ladies

These are my hands

My knees.

(Plath, 1962)

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