AbstractsLanguage, Literature & Linguistics

This thesis investigates in which ways Samuel R. Delany’s novel Hogg challenge the discourse of normality as stipulated, supported and maintained by the capitalist Oedipal repression of desire. Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of the Anti-Oedipus, this thesis explores how Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of desire as a free and productive force can be seen as a disruptive element in a society that relies on repression of the subject for its stability. Furthermore, this thesis explores how the novel questions the understanding of civilisation being dependent on the individual’s submission to the Oedipus triangulation and in extension the Oedipal capitalist separation between the public and the private sphere. Ultimately, the main argument claims that Oedipal repression of desire only allows desire to invest in a restricted number of representations, making other identities than the heteronormative suspicious or invisible.  Hogg depicts a society where capitalism commodifies everything, and need the Oedipal subject to ensure its stability. The characters in the novel that do not subject themselves to the capitalist discourse escape the subjection to the Oedipal triangulation, and are thus free to invest their desire in any way they choose, primarily in non-heterosexual and salirophiliac activities. These characters can be seen as schizoid subjects that are constantly threatening to expose the fragility of the social structure by embodying a contrast to the hegemonic discourse and therefore constantly question its authority as main creator of reason and reality.