The horror of inheritance: poisonous lineage in Bret Easton Ellis' Lunar Park. Issue 2 (1st November 2010)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Watkiss, Joanne
• Is Part Of: Horror studies. Volume 1:Issue 2(2010)
• Page Start: 241
• Page End: 252
• Publication Date: 2010-11-01
• Subjects: Horror in mass media -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Horror -- Periodicals; 700.4164
• DOI: 10.1386/host.1.2.241_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-3275

Abstract

Lunar Park presents the reader with a revisiting of the classic themes of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In this text, the son is presented with the spectre of the father after he has ignored the wishes outlined in his last Will and Testament. Ellis deliberately alludes to issues inherent to the gothic the invalid Will; the castle; themes of inheritance manufacturing a textual space that is repeatedly disturbed. Through the return of the father and the dislocation of linearity, the notion of fatherson inheritance becomes impossible. Through the recurrent emblem of poison in Hamlet, inheritance can be understood as an experience of horror relating to Derrida's pharmakon: as both poison and cure, this signifier highlights the flaws of a tradition based on linearity and oppositional terms. Horror is initiated through a lack of meaning, an uncertainty that shakes the foundations of authoritative structures such as history, patriarchy and the law. Reminiscent of the inherited bloodline passed from father to son, the pharmakon disturbs the very tradition it attempts to reaffirm. In Lunar Park, as in Hamlet, the protagonist must submit to the word of the father, an action that results in illegality and chaos, questioning further the tradition of authoritative patriarchy. The poisonous effects of the father result in a time that is out of joint: an impossible experience that halts further inheritance of such a venomous bloodline.