A Study Of Postmodern In The Infernal Desire Machines Of Dr. Hoffman By Angela Carter

Abstract

Angela Carter returns to the imagined terrain and strange kinds of societies in her novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman, following up on her novel Heroes and Villains. Her goal in this work is to undermine positive scientific rules or the metanarrative of reason, which she does by establishing Dr. Hoffman, a poet-physicist whose mission is to liberate wants by releasing the unconscious. An American metropolis is once again under attack in this novel by the absurdity principle of Dr. Hoffman, who has penetrated the city's reality with weird unreal pictures that emerge from mirrors and mingle with the inhabitants looking to be quite real, like in Angela Carter's previous novel, Heroes and Villains. As one can see, this conflict is waged between two philosophical hypotheses, reason and desire. Though the book seems to settle this issue in favor of reason in the end, emotion dominates the narrative for most of the story.