Of the Crab and Corporations: The Growth Motif in Richard Powers’ Gain

Authors

  • Dr C. A. Lal Lecturer (Selection Grade), Department of English, Christian College, Kattakada, Kerala, India.

Keywords:

Growth motif, Richard Power, Gain, Cancer

Abstract

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.

References

Green, Hardy. “The Best Business Books of 1998”. Business Week, 3608 (1998): 16.

Le Clair, Tom. Powers of Invention. Nation, 267.4 (1998): 33.

Powers, Richard. Gain. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. London: Heinemann, 2000.

Sontag, Susan. Illness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978.

Williams, Jeffrey. “The Issue of Corporations: Richard Powers' Gain”. Cultural Logic, 2.2 (1999). http://www.eserver.org/clogic/2-2.

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Published

01.10.2009

How to Cite

C. A. Lal. (2009). Of the Crab and Corporations: The Growth Motif in Richard Powers’ Gain. Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature, 1(2), 2–6. Retrieved from https://journals.eltai.in/index.php/jtrel/article/view/JTREL010202

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2009): October

Section

Research Articles

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