Abstract
This article aims at analyzing the relationship between fiction and salvific discourse in the novel Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), by Nathanael West, understanding this problematic narrative as a liberating performance of the humor classified as black, from which dogmatic contents are dissociated, with a shift beyond the psychological dimension and religious representations that contents take into account. To do so, we carried out our reading by making use of the myth of Dionysus that allows us to articulate the vertiginous logics that takes place in West's text, leading it to the nonsense that contaminates the religious discourse and deposes it from the sovereign power in this fictional world. Furthermore, our study is grounded on Deleuze's recreation of Nietzsche's eternal return. We also resort to the philosophy of religion to understand Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity and its relation to the myth of Dionysus and eternal return in the analyzed work. The analysis made of such novel points to the insertion of irony and humor in the novel as a constant literary element that causes discursive heterogeneity, pointing the ambivalences and inconsistencies of Christianity conveyed by media in the discourse of messianic metanarrative.
Highlights
The constitution of the novel Miss Lonelyhearts, apparently, revolves around the question of the Christ complex the main character experiences
The said work is deemed by critics, such as Hanlon (1977) and Boer (2008), as a farce characterized by the black humor
The novel Miss Lonelyhearts deals, in this way, with that which is invasive, nonaccountable, with the logic vertigo and the idea of death. In this scenario, where affirmative human drives are negated, the Christ complex of the main character sounds as a mockery and a laughter that borders on shedding of tears
Summary
The constitution of the novel Miss Lonelyhearts, apparently, revolves around the question of the Christ complex the main character experiences. The novel Miss Lonelyhearts deals, in this way, with that which is invasive, nonaccountable, with the logic vertigo and the idea of death In this scenario, where affirmative human drives are negated, the Christ complex of the main character sounds as a mockery and a laughter that borders on shedding of tears. In this way, the Dionysian is seen as [...] the approach of spring when the nature is pervaded by lust for life [...] all nature’s artistic power reveals itself here, amidst shivers of Performance, humor and discourse of salvation in the novel Miss Lonelyhearts intoxication, to the highest, most blissful satisfaction of the primordial unity The sky above the head of Miss Lonelyhearts and the mockery in the endless fall of the character/actor
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