Graduate Program

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2005

Thesis Director

Tim Engles

Thesis Committee Member

Chrisopher Wixson

Thesis Committee Member

John Guzlowski

Abstract

In their work and in their lives, Don DeLillo and Jim Morrison have been fascinated by the dialectic between famous figures and those whose adoration makes them famous. Each writer has written extensively about (and lived with) the conflict between a famous figure's individuality and the expectations of his fans. DeLillo depicts tensions between famous figures and admiring crowds in several ofhis novels, especially in his most thorough analyses ofthe subject, Great Jones Street, a portrait of a suddenly reclusive rock star, and Mao II, where he depicts a legendarily reclusive novelist. Morrison also has a personal connection with the conflict between being his own type of performer and lyricist and the different expectations of crowds. In volumes of his own work, Morrison meditates on the costs of fame and the strange phenomenon of rock stardom, offering arguments and insights into the conflict between the societal expectations ofthe entertainer and the performer's distinct individuality. Upon realizing that their respective legends now have lives of their own, outside of themselves, each of the three leaders-- Great Jones Street's Bucky Wunderlick, Mao II's Bill Gray, and Jim Morrison himself-- must choose whether to embrace his dual self or to fight against it. All three leaders lose their true identities to the images of them that the public expects and wants to see, and all withdraw to try to regain a sense of authority in their own lives. By retreating into silence and seclusion, Bucky Wunderlick is able to find a truer sense of his creative self, later attempting to reemerge as a different and more authentic person and leader. Bill Gray, in his self-imposed exile from the public, eventually realizes that he must escape both his seclusion and his obsessive assistant Scott; he does so in order to find his authorial identity and to move away from the stalemate surrounding the publishing of his new book and his own anxieties over the waning cultural influence of the renowned author. Jim Morrison lost himself in the face ofthe public's demand that he become a fictional character of sorts, fixed in a certain performative mode; in so doing, he lost his creative self, before attempting to find it again during a withdrawal to Paris that ended in his death. The negotiation of the dialectic between public pressure and private creative exploration proves to be one of the defining conflicts in both these creators and their characters, a conflict that pushes them to search for a truly authentic sense of their creative selves.

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