(In)Coherent Desert Islands: Desert Island Discs and Bounty Chocolate in Print

Abstract

This chapter examines desert island texts from the immediate post-war period. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity, it explores the ways in which representations of desert islands characterise identity as structured by choice. In Desert Island Discs (1942–), the island is the vehicle for autobiographical narratives that construct identity as coherent and regulated by patriarchal authority. This is complicated by the endorsement of choice and the suggestion that identity is always deferred. Print advertising for Bounty chocolate (1953–1954) represents a paradoxically remote and accessible desert island. It is fragmentary: only the advertised chocolate can provide coherent identity and erotic satisfaction. The island evokes the underdetermined condition of liquid modern identity; its ontological instability suggests that even the Bounty bar cannot provide lasting satisfaction.