Heiddegerian enframing, nihilism & affectlessness in J.G. Ballard’s Crash

• Published in: International journal of English studies Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 59 - 75
• Main Author: Fernandez, Carlos Sanchez
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Murcia Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia (Murcia University Press) 01.01.2019; Universidad de Murcia, Facultad de Letras
• Subjects: Accidents; Animal feeding and feeds; Ballard, J G (1930-2009); British & Irish literature; Death; English literature; Heidegger, Martin (1889-1976); Literary criticism; Modernity; Motor vehicle drivers; Motor Vehicles; Nihilism; Novels; Performativity; Philosophy; Postmodernism; Technology; New York; United Kingdom
• ISSN: 1578-7044; 1989-6131
• DOI: 10.6018/ijes.359191

J.G. Ballard’s novel Crash (1973) allows a reading in the terms of Heidegger’s concept of Ge-stell or enframing, according to which in modernity everything, humans included, is seen as a mere means to often questionable ends. Prompted by violent sexual fantasies and an unleashed death drive, its main characters, a wild bunch of symphorophiliac drivers, live a life of existential nihilism, treating human beings as objects, mere fodder for their prearranged car crashes. In so doing, they take an active part in a general process of dehumanisation afflicting Western civilisation, where people are just standing reserve (Bestand). This would be closely linked to so-called affectlessness, where emotions go nowhere but to an ever-increasing self-absorption in a world without others. In turn, this would be symptomatic of a civilisational shift from word to image, in a society where technology and performativity reign supreme and everything is evacuated of meaning.