In my thesis, I analyse Neil Gaiman’s American Gods which highlights that a stable national identity is not possible, and the oppositions imposed by national narratives are limiting for the nation and its people. Yet, fiction can help us become aware of the illusion of the binary oppositions, and their inherent limitations in defining both personal and national identity. In chapter one, I discuss the definition of myth and their function in society as a way to give meaning to life. The myths can
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book is a coming-of-age story exploring identity and the transitions from childhood to adolescence. However; Gaiman recognizes children navigating through life are not fragile creatures, but instead are susceptible to real life tragedy and have the capacity to feel complex emotions much like adults. From the beginning Nobody Owens has had tragedy strike, and has experienced feelings and emotions usually not thought of as childlike. Gaiman does not shelter his younger audience
Throughout Neil Gaiman’s novel “American Gods”, Gaiman accepts the secularization of America and presents an America that has been disenchanted, displayed through the actions of the old gods in the novel. The “storm” that brews throughout the book takes place as a final battle between old and new gods but ends with little bloodshed. The clear outcome of no winner in this final battle depicts how both old and new gods are able to coincide with each other. The reason this sort of unity takes place
The theory of Existentialism in Relation to American Gods by Neil Gaiman Throughout the novel, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, the philosophical theory that emphasizes the existence of an individual also known as existentialism, is demonstrated amongst different characters. The protagonist Shadow, is an individual trying to determine his own development of his acts of free will. However, Wednesday interferes with Shadow’s growth of his own individualism. How can the theory of existentialism by Maximilian