Date of Award
12-2010
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
English
Department
English
Major Professor
Lackey, Kris
Second Advisor
Malmgren, Carl
Third Advisor
Hazlett, John
Abstract
Tony Tanner's book City of Words analyzes American literature from 1950-1970; in the chapter entitled "Everything Running Down" the theme of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, is explored and revealed to be a common motif within many works of American literature. Tanner's analysis does not specifically address the presence of entropy within the genre of the American road narrative; when considering his analysis presented in "Everything Running Down" with Kris Lackey's analysis of American road narratives presented in his book RoadFrames, the presence of entropy and how it is applied within the American road narrative becomes apparent. Although Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Cormac McCarthy's The Road were published over sixty years apart from one another and are seemingly disparate texts, these two texts reveal the thematic use of entropy which connects them in an ongoing dialogue within the genre of the American road narrative.
Recommended Citation
Deskin, Sean, "Entropy in Two American Road Narratives" (2010). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1243.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1243
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.