Elemental Ballard

Abstract

Through the study of the symbolic imagery underlying four generically very different texts (The Drowned World, The Unlimited Dream Company, Empire of the Sun, and Running Wild), this article explores James Graham Ballard's personal mythology. Based on a symbolism of the material elements, Ballard's primitive and allusive imagery not only exposes the mythical substrates of our technological societies but also generates a typically Ballardian space-time continuum. At the crossroads of intra and intertextual meaning, Ballard's symbolic imagery calls for the active reinterpretation of our technological world by mobilizing what Lévi-Strauss has called the poetics of universal human imagination.

Keywords::

• imagery
• symbolism
• mythopoetics

Notes

Notes

¹ My translation of “tout système sémiologique est un système de valeurs; or le consommateur du mythe prend la signification pour un système de faits: le mythe est lu comme un système factuel alors qu'il n'est qu'un système sémiologique.”

² Nick Perry and Roy Wilkie's “Homo Hydrogenesis,” David Pringle's initial study on Ballard's first four eco-apocalyptic novels, and Joe Milicia's “Dry Thoughts in a Dry Season” have broached certain aspects of Ballard's symbolism. No study, however, has presented the full coherence of the imagery of extremes underlying all of Ballard's work.

³ Known first for his science fictional work—of which The Drowned World is an example—Ballard has explored other literary genres, namely surrealism with The Unlimited Dream Company (Kraitsowits, “The Unlimited Dream Company”), autobiography with Empire of the Sun (Kraitsowits, “La vérité figurale”), and crime fiction with Running Wild (Kraitsowits, “Esthétique du Chaos”).

⁴ My translation of “Une matière que l'imagination ne peut faire vivre doublement ne peut jouer le rôle psychologique de matière originelle. Il faut qu'il y ait double participation—participation du bien et du mal, participation tranquille du blanc et du noir.”

⁵ For an analysis of the poetics of urban life in general, read Sansot.

⁶ My translation of “des points d'énergie qui font de l'écriture une affaire de partages.”

⁷ For more on Ballard's concern for “impossible,” in-between worlds, read Luckhurst.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephan Kraitsowits

Dr. Stephan Kraitsowits is a Maître de Conférences in English at Université de Picardie–Jules Verne. He has published several articles and a book on the novels of James Graham Ballard.