HENB0T201U Engelsk - Valgfag 2 - Emne i britiske studier A: Four Quest Novels The Search for Purpose and Meaning

J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar (1963)

Margaret Atwood Lady Oracle (1977)

Bret EastonEllis Lunar Park (2005)

 The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar have achieved status as classics on the problems of being young in post-warAmerica in a materialistic society with different norms for men and women. Both Holden and Esther are nonconformist outsiders searching for meaning in life and encountering various characters on their quests.

Joan in the Canadian writer Atwood's novel undergoes a development from a child dominated by her mother into an independent character, a writer of popular fiction and poetry and involved with different men. Joan is a tragicomic heroine whose narrative contains elements of Gothic literature.

LunarPark is a fictional autobiography whose protagonist is and is not Bret Easton Ellis. The novel is partly a criticism of contemporary American norms and values and partly an individual quest for meaning in a threatening and haunted world.

All four novels are fundamentally concerned with existentialist and universal issues and are open to different readings and interpretations.