A Dystopian View of Postmodern Culture and Corporate Hegemony in Max Barry’s Jennifer Government

Abstract

This paper offers a dystopian view of postmodern culture and corporate hegemony to foreground the effects of late capitalism on human and society. The paper interprets Max Barrys Jennifer Government in the light of Frederic Jameson and Tom Moylans theories of postmodern culture and dystopia, respectively. For Jameson, postmodern culture is characterized by commodification of society, general depthlessness, simulacrum, and death of subjectivity. Similarly, Moylan considers dystopia an index of the systemic ills of late capitalism. The corporate hegemony enacts a socioeconomic hegemonic enclosure and deprives humans of social and individual identity. Barrys novel presents a dystopic view of postmodern culture by foregrounding the commodification of society, corporate hegemony, and intensification of economic growth at the cost of social values, which prompt general depthlessness and social disintegration. The present study offers an explicit understanding of the ills of late capitalism by emphasizing the lived experience of social reality.