Beyond Crime and Punishment: Metaphor of Violence in Iain Banks’s Complicity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.2.1-2.155-164Keywords:
violence in fiction, mystery genre, Iain Banks, Complicity (book)Abstract
Trying to decide on the place of art/literature in the network of codes and its relationship to what we recognize as reality, we are offered a number of interpretations, some of which support the theory that perception of reality in a text is influenced by social circumstances and by a number of factors relating to them. Therefore, “reality” cannot be seen as a reflection of any particular “natural” state, order or organization. Literature questions the assumption that coding is natural, much in the same way that language questions the assumption that there is an intrinsic order governing the world as a natural structure. It engages different voices and ideologies in a dialogue inside the same text, achieving the effect opposite to habitualization, i.e. defamiliarization. Corresponding to the culture of excess, Iain Bank’s Complicity, pinpoints representations of postmodern “reality” within the framework of postindustrial consumption culture. It deploys defamiliarization strategies of juxtaposing violence and power, taking advantage of the conventions of generic fiction of which violence is a mandatory constituent.
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