Of suicidal virgins and bodily angels

Recent scholarly work in the interdisciplinary field of suburban studies has focused on the analysis of suburbia as an increasingly heterogeneous phenomenon, thus departing from previous assumptions that the suburbs are uninteresting enclaves of uniformity and conformity. However, in spite of some significant advances, the exploration of the suburban landscape is often heavily invested with fixed symbolic meanings, which claim either utopian or dystopian discourses. In light of this, Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia – or the notion of alternative spaces that mirror the culture at large – serves as a useful tool for overcoming this binary (Beuka 7). This thesis aims at examining the complex representations of the heterotopian suburban landscape in Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides (1993) and Barbara Gowdy’s Falling Angels (1989). While set in different geographical locations – Eugenides’s in the United States, and Gowdy’s in Canada –, both novels cast a critical glance at the lights and shadows of the North American suburban dream, unpacking the supposed universality of suburbia and allowing for the identification of significantly recurring patterns. The analysis of these two novels will focus on three different, but thoroughly intertwined aspects. In the first place, the constructions of female and male identities within the heterosexual matrix will be addressed through Judith Butler’s work on gender relations (Gender, Bodies). Secondly, the violence implied in the demand for a coherent and shared suburban identity will be mainly related to Richard Sennett’s observations on “the myth of community solidarity” (36). Finally, Lauren Berlant’s concept of “cruel optimism” will be applied to the mechanisms of desire that keep the characters physically and emotionally bound to their environment. This thesis attempts to contribute to bridging the gap between utopian and dystopian fictionalized suburbs and to inspire future research in the growing field of critical suburban studies. References Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press, 2011. Beuka, Robert. SuburbiaNation. Reading Suburban Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Fiction and Film. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” 1993. Routledge, 2014. ---. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990. Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Virgin Suicides. Bloomsbury, 1993. Gowdy, Barbara. Falling Angels. 1989. Bloomsbury, 1991. Sennet, Richard. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life. W.W. Norton & Company, 1992.

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