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Being's Wound: (Un)Explaining Evil in Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Being's Wound: (Un)Explaining Evil in Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me.
Authors: CLARK, DOROTHY G.
Source: Journal of Popular Culture (Wiley-Blackwell). Feb2009, Vol. 42 Issue 1, p49-66. 18p.
Subjects: Thompson, Jim, Killer Inside Me, The (Book), American pulp literature, American novelists, Ethics in literature, Immorality, Good & evil in literature
Abstract: The article examines the particular characterization of the protagonists in the work of pulp fiction novelist Jim Thompson. Particular attention is paid to his 1952 novel "The Killer Inside Me" and its disturbing reflection of a world of "moral indistinguishability." It is stressed that Thompson's writing prefigures postmodern philosophical discussions of evil, which is personified in Lou Ford, the novel's narrator and protagonist. The author investigates the narrative techniques that obscure the cause of Lou's evil as they simultaneously dismantle accepted paradigms for making sense of evil and reveal a world where science and reason are insufficient principles of moral explanation.
Database: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
Description
Abstract:The article examines the particular characterization of the protagonists in the work of pulp fiction novelist Jim Thompson. Particular attention is paid to his 1952 novel "The Killer Inside Me" and its disturbing reflection of a world of "moral indistinguishability." It is stressed that Thompson's writing prefigures postmodern philosophical discussions of evil, which is personified in Lou Ford, the novel's narrator and protagonist. The author investigates the narrative techniques that obscure the cause of Lou's evil as they simultaneously dismantle accepted paradigms for making sense of evil and reveal a world where science and reason are insufficient principles of moral explanation.
ISSN:15405931
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2009.00570.x