Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash

J.G. Ballard’s sci-fi novel Crash is a powerful – albeit highly controversial – depiction of man’s destiny in late industrial culture, “the destiny of [his] human body in a world of automotive disaster” and proliferating technology (Youngquist). It traumatically “crashes” the boundaries between bodi...

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Main Author: Panayiota Chrysochou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Edinburgh 2009-06-01
Series:Forum
Online Access:http://www.forumjournal.org/article/view/616
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author Panayiota Chrysochou
author_facet Panayiota Chrysochou
author_sort Panayiota Chrysochou
collection DOAJ
description J.G. Ballard’s sci-fi novel Crash is a powerful – albeit highly controversial – depiction of man’s destiny in late industrial culture, “the destiny of [his] human body in a world of automotive disaster” and proliferating technology (Youngquist). It traumatically “crashes” the boundaries between bodies and machines, interior states of subjectivity and the external world, even the boundaries between fiction and reality, and depicts a ghastly marriage between sex and technology through the mediation of the metallic car-body – which, as Ballard points out in his “Introduction” to the French edition of the text, is portrayed in Crash “not only as a sexual image, but as a total metaphor for man’s life in today’s society” (Ballard 6).
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spelling doaj.art-5189eb0e6e7c4170a63df52ce6515ae62022-12-21T22:41:40ZengUniversity of EdinburghForum1749-97712009-06-0108616Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s CrashPanayiota Chrysochou0University of EdinburghJ.G. Ballard’s sci-fi novel Crash is a powerful – albeit highly controversial – depiction of man’s destiny in late industrial culture, “the destiny of [his] human body in a world of automotive disaster” and proliferating technology (Youngquist). It traumatically “crashes” the boundaries between bodies and machines, interior states of subjectivity and the external world, even the boundaries between fiction and reality, and depicts a ghastly marriage between sex and technology through the mediation of the metallic car-body – which, as Ballard points out in his “Introduction” to the French edition of the text, is portrayed in Crash “not only as a sexual image, but as a total metaphor for man’s life in today’s society” (Ballard 6).http://www.forumjournal.org/article/view/616
spellingShingle Panayiota Chrysochou
Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash
Forum
title Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash
title_full Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash
title_fullStr Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash
title_full_unstemmed Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash
title_short Fractured Bodies and Social Wounds: The Simulation of Trauma in J.G. Ballard’s Crash
title_sort fractured bodies and social wounds the simulation of trauma in j g ballard s crash
url http://www.forumjournal.org/article/view/616
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