Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1986

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Rice, Julian

Abstract

The individual's survival in a hostile, postmodern environment is a principal theme of Jerzy Kosinski's Cockpit. Tarden, the preeminent survivor in this landscape, equates survival with control. He achieves control, both of himself and others, by aggressive forms of psychological and physical manipulation. The final goal of this manipulation is the absolute subversion of death. As he ages, Tarde!} realizes that death can only be diverted, and· his strategies to a void the inevitable become more sophisticated. Initially a being of action, he finally seeks refuge in words, in confession. Yet his confession is a violent parallel to his life; as such it becomes another diversionary act. The reader, at whom the confession is directed, is the target of this will to control and its violence.

Extent

51 p.

Comments

FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1986.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Identifier

FADT14342

Format

pdf

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