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A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”

John Barth‟s “Lost in the Funhouse” is a prime example of a postmodernist short fiction. The poetics of the work is mainly concerned with questions of ontology and frequently seeks to foreground this notion in different ways so much so that the reader gets lost in a funhouse of reading. Accordingly,...

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Main Author: Madahiian, Masoud
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit UKM 2015
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8270/1/5558-22055-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8270/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
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spelling my-ukm.journal.82702016-12-14T06:46:44Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8270/ A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” Madahiian, Masoud John Barth‟s “Lost in the Funhouse” is a prime example of a postmodernist short fiction. The poetics of the work is mainly concerned with questions of ontology and frequently seeks to foreground this notion in different ways so much so that the reader gets lost in a funhouse of reading. Accordingly, the story has been divided into separate worlds, each trying to call into attention its own ontological existence and significance. Barth‟s story self-consciously implements certain techniques at different levels of his work to foreground world formation and draw the reader‟s attention towards the worlds of the text. His story foregrounds different planes, each of which stands independently as an ontological world: the world of language and text, the metafictional level, the projected world level, and the external world of the author. However, the resultant ontological ruptures, which are intentionally induced, cause various complications in the narrative. Ontologies are presented as unstable, and they intrude into one another. This brings about confusion, since the horizons of two or more worlds meet at a common point which brings about a critical state of affairs – ontological crisis. The above confusion, it is argued, makes an ontological funhouse in which the reader „gets lost.‟ This leads to a sense of uncertainty regarding the ontologies, that is, they flicker between existence and nonexistence. The texture of “Lost in the Funhouse” is thus suffused with such ontological indeterminacy. Penerbit UKM 2015-02 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8270/1/5558-22055-1-PB.pdf Madahiian, Masoud (2015) A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 15 (1). pp. 225-239. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
institution Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
building Perpustakaan Tun Sri Lanang Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
content_source UKM Journal Article Repository
url_provider http://journalarticle.ukm.my/
language English
description John Barth‟s “Lost in the Funhouse” is a prime example of a postmodernist short fiction. The poetics of the work is mainly concerned with questions of ontology and frequently seeks to foreground this notion in different ways so much so that the reader gets lost in a funhouse of reading. Accordingly, the story has been divided into separate worlds, each trying to call into attention its own ontological existence and significance. Barth‟s story self-consciously implements certain techniques at different levels of his work to foreground world formation and draw the reader‟s attention towards the worlds of the text. His story foregrounds different planes, each of which stands independently as an ontological world: the world of language and text, the metafictional level, the projected world level, and the external world of the author. However, the resultant ontological ruptures, which are intentionally induced, cause various complications in the narrative. Ontologies are presented as unstable, and they intrude into one another. This brings about confusion, since the horizons of two or more worlds meet at a common point which brings about a critical state of affairs – ontological crisis. The above confusion, it is argued, makes an ontological funhouse in which the reader „gets lost.‟ This leads to a sense of uncertainty regarding the ontologies, that is, they flicker between existence and nonexistence. The texture of “Lost in the Funhouse” is thus suffused with such ontological indeterminacy.
format Article
author Madahiian, Masoud
spellingShingle Madahiian, Masoud
A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
author_facet Madahiian, Masoud
author_sort Madahiian, Masoud
title A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
title_short A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
title_full A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
title_fullStr A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
title_full_unstemmed A funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
title_sort funhouse of reading: ontological foregrounding in john barth’s “lost in the funhouse”
publisher Penerbit UKM
publishDate 2015
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8270/1/5558-22055-1-PB.pdf
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8270/
http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/index
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score 13.211869

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