Consumerism and the Aestheticisation of Violence in J.G. Ballard’s Kingdom Come Cover Image

Consumerism and the Aestheticisation of Violence in J.G. Ballard’s Kingdom Come
Consumerism and the Aestheticisation of Violence in J.G. Ballard’s Kingdom Come

Author(s): Cornelia Macsiniuc
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: UNIVERSITATEA »ȘTEFAN CEL MARE« SUCEAVA
Keywords: Ballard, consumerism; fascism; transaesthetics; violence

Summary/Abstract: Ballard‘s late fiction explores obsessively the processes whichengender uncontrollable violence and various forms of social psychopathologyin the contemporary society of affluence. The present paper focuses on therepresentation, in his last novel, Kingdom Come, of consumerism as anaestheticised form of violence, with a fascist-like, totalitarian ethos, acharacteristic product of an age of de-differentiation and loss of meaning,dominated by media-generated messiahs.