Liminal Space in J. G. Ballard’s "Concrete Island"

This article explores the way in which surrealist techniques and assumptions underpin spatial representations in Ballard’s "Concrete Island". With much of Ballard’s fiction using spatiality as an ideologically charged instrument to articulate a critique that underpins postcapitalist cultur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Text matters (Łódź) Vol. 9; no. 9; pp. 345 - 355
Main Author: Tereszewski, Marcin
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Lódz Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego 01.11.2019
Lodz University Press
Sciendo
University of Łódź
Subjects:
Auge, Marc (1935- )
Ballard
Ballard, J G (1930-2009)
Boundaries
British & Irish literature
Culture
English literature
Fiction
Ideology
Literary devices
Narrative techniques
Novels
psychogeography
Space
spatiality
Studies of Literature
Surrealism
Ballard
spatiality
psychogeography
surrealism
ISSN:2083-2931, 2084-574X
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This article explores the way in which surrealist techniques and assumptions underpin spatial representations in Ballard’s "Concrete Island". With much of Ballard’s fiction using spatiality as an ideologically charged instrument to articulate a critique that underpins postcapitalist culture, it seems important to focus on exactly the kind of spaces that he creates. This paper will investigate the means by which spatiality is conceptualized in Ballard’s fiction, with special emphasis on places situated on the borders between realism and fantasy. Ballard’s spaces, often positioned on the edgelands of cities or centers of civilization, can be aligned with the surrealist project as presented not only by the Situationalist International, but of psychogeographical discourse in general. What the various Ballardian spaces—motorways, airports, high-rises, deserts, shopping malls, suburbs—have in common is a sense of existing outside stable definitions or what, following Marc Augé, we would call non-places, which by their definition are disconnected from a globalized image society, thus generating a revolutionary idea of freedom. As these places exist outside the cognitive map we impose on our environment, they present a potentially liberating force that resonates in Ballard’s fiction.
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ISSN:2083-2931
2084-574X
DOI:10.18778/2083-2931.09.21