Literary Narrative and Information Culture: Garbage, Waste, and Residue in the Work of E. L. Doctorow

Abstract

T~ aking W. B. Yeats's cue that refuse and rags comprise the recycled raw materials of masterful images, this essay takes a close look at the trope of trash in E. L. Doctorow's fiction. Doctorow assembles images into complex narratives that yield a Yeatsian sheen, however tarnished, of mastery and brilliance. And Yeats and Doctorow are similarly concerned about the modes of consumption that have come to constitute the economic system of the Western industrial Litera y Narrative and Information Cultu e: arbage, Waste, and Residue in th Work