Of the Crab and Corporations: The Growth Motif in Richard Powers’ Gain
Keywords:
Growth motif, Richard Power, Gain, CancerAbstract
The novels of Richard Powers reflect the powerful impact of post-modern science and technology on everyday life. The present article looks at his sixth novel, Gain (1998), in which cancer that ‘grows’ in the protagonist’s body symbolises the ecological malaise that has gripped the biosphere itself. The novel becomes a telling statement on a globalised world, the tastes and even aspirations of which are constructed and governed by corporate conglomerates. As man creates new devices to make his life more comfortable, he also leaves behind a trail of accumulating debris that poisons the planet’s basic life-support systems.
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Williams, Jeffrey. “The Issue of Corporations: Richard Powers' Gain”. Cultural Logic, 2.2 (1999). http://www.eserver.org/clogic/2-2.
