"Secret Female Jokes" : Self-Conscious Paranoia and the Female Postmodern Condition in Diane Johnson's The Shadow Knows

Authors

WALSBERGEROVÁ Tereza

Year of publication 2019
Type Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description In this paper I propose that The Shadow Knows is an example of what I am calling “self-conscious paranoia,” which is a narrative style that uses humor to highlight the absurdity of the postmodern condition by trapping the reader in a position between laughter and suffering. Building on a synthesis of theories of postmodern humor and feminist humor with discourses of conspiracy and paranoia, I argue that the narrator’s self-conscious paranoia in The Shadow Knows makes visible the irony that women cannot afford to not be paranoid in a world controlled by the patriarchal system. The absurdist realization that there is no possibility of agency for women in a world like this then offers an escape route from the prison of their own mind.
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