Dr.
Robert Vaughan as a Subversive Antihero in Ballard’s Postmodern Novel Crash
Works Citedx
This
paper explores how protagonists are represented in fictions of postmodern time
focusing on the character of Dr. Robert Vaughan in J.G. Ballard’s 1973 novel Crash.
Almost all of the traditional works of fictions follow the story of one
absolute protagonist who is full of virtuous characters and generosity. Heroes
usually embark on a journey, face difficulties, succeed them and restore the
moral universal order. They are always victorious over the negative forces called
villains. As Gerwel observes, the universal western hero is “almost always a man…is
coming from some indeterminate location…will choose a goal before the first act
is done, almost always travels alone, isolated from any sense of community, and
is always shown as being preternaturally competent” (par 1). Such traditional
heroes are easy to recognize and sympathize. But when we come to the
technologically advanced postmodern time, we do not find any clear-cut boundaries
between good and evil dichotomy. Like Robert Vaughan in Crash, the
protagonists of postmodern works are devoid of morality and ethics. They do not
undertake the burden to restore the metanarratives and are individualistic in
nature. Neither they are bad guys like traditional villains nor they are
idealistic like the traditional heroes. Vaughan, instead of clinging to the
natural and conventional mode of sexuality, subverts the male-female sexual
orientation and indulges into car crash fetishism, which he calls “a new
sexuality” (96). He is a subversive antihero in technologically sophisticated
postmodern city of London, entangled with complex expressways and fastest-running
transportation vehicles.
When we look at the classical archetypal heroes like
Hercules, Achilles, Odysseus et cetera, they are like demigods with full of
idealistic traits. Such mythical heroes used to reflect the religious beliefs
and the idealistic consciousness of Greco-Roman time. People had faith in the Gods
and heroes inspired them to lead a prosperous and virtuous life. The concept of
hero was close to the way Gurung defines hero, “the high name we give to those
to whom we turn for strength in an effort to find ourselves a motive or in the
worse an effort to create in ourselves a conscience.” (2). Traditional heroes
used to be so much idealistic and moralistic that we could only see brighter
and genuine side on them. But in postmodern time, we do not have absolute faith
in anything. Religion and Gods can no more guide us. As Lyotard claims,
postmodernism is ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’ (xxiv). We have no rules,
boundaries and fixed system in postmodern world. When there are no grand
narratives, people are free to do as they like. They can harbor their fantasies
and fetishisms. New traits can develop. Thus, in this favorable time of
postmodernism, Vaughan insistently dismantles the conventional sexual
orientation of human-human(male-female) to human-machine modality.
Unlike heroes, Vaughan is full of criminal mentality. He
falls for the popular actress Elizabeth Taylor but instead of approaching her
in traditional way, he carefully plans and stages a car crash with her. He
dreams of ejaculation when she is bleeding and dying by striking with his car.
He constantly ferries around the highways of London for days in order to explicitly
plan the collision with her though later he has to die alone and he fails in
his motive. For him, to collide with her is his fantasy of life, “With a little
forethought she could die in a unique vehicle collision, one that could
transform all our dreams and fantasies” (105). Throughout the novel he is busy
to materialize his fantasy into reality. He urges to attain orgasm by crashing
with her. He aspires to gain pleasure by pain and suffocation. His whole
mentality is filled with “blood and semen” (166). As the
narrator-character-author of the novel J.G. Ballard comments, after the crash,
“For Vaughan the car-crash and his own sexuality had made their final marriage”
(3). Vaughan experiences sexual ecstasy after the crash takes place. With
mixing of semen and blood in car’s engine, he gains his orgasm. To fulfil his
crazy fantasies, he goes even up to the extent of killing people by crashing
with them. In this respect, he appears like a mentally disturbed person, a
psychopath. He is a man obsessed with criminal behavior. He does not look like
a traditional hero from any angle. To a sane mind, he is definitely a sick and
disturbed sociopath.
Moreover, Vaughan’s activities in the novel are flooded
with non-conformist behavior. He strolls around the city in his car with his
video camera and records whenever he witnesses a car crash. He tails the car-crash
victims and record their videos too. Like he does to Ballard, he gradually
turns those car crash victims into a maniac like him. His place is all filled
with pornographic and graphical materials. Beyond his obsession, he is not
concerned for anything. He lives for satisfying his obsession and is ready to
die for it. He has no regard for livelihood, religion, morality, family or
anything else. He lacks human emotions. The only thing he carries with him is
his obsession for this new form of sexuality he has invented. The way we
assimilate society and social conventions are far away from Vaughan. He does
not stick to any belief of our world. To the disappointment of society, he is
not only a bisexual person but also of unimaginable type, who involves in sex
with machines. A sadist, he enjoys blood, scars and wounds spilling out of his
victims. He spends all his day hunting cars and planning for crashes. He
subverts all the conventions of society. He does not inherit any heroic
features of Hercules or Achilles or Daedalus.
Vaughan, with his subversive libido is not a heroic
character. Furthermore, he is also not a villain in traditional sense. He does
not possess any traits that brands him as a villain. He is not immoral
character. Rather he is an amoral character who has no regard for morality and
ethics. It is due to the technological advancement and postmodern time, he has
become such a hell of a character. Surrounded by machines all his life, it is
only realistic that he has developed sexual affinity with them. In this sense,
he is a postmodern hero, a byproduct of innovative expressways and transportation
machines. In postmodern world, people are busy with machines. They are like
cyborgs and cannot live detached from their machinery parts. At least they wear
glasses or watches to qualify as cyborgs. Due to extreme dependency on
machines, their sexuality has also transformed. As Zadie Smith analyses, “The
real shock of Crash is not that people have sex in or near cars, but that
technology has entered into even our most intimate human relations. Not
man-as-technology-forming but technology-as-man-forming” (par 14). There is no
more intimacy between husband and wife or lovers. Every human relationship is
replaced by machines. By riding in car all his life, it seems very realistic
that Vaughan has developed that intimacy with his car rather than with human
beings who are distanced by technology. Vaughan appears like an ethos of his
time. He has no intention to harm anyone and thus is not a villain. He is just
the product of postmodern world.
Not only Vaughan but almost all the characters of the
novel indulge into some kind of symphorophilia. Ballard himself becomes the follower
of Vaughan’s car-crash fetishism and adopts him as his Guru. He fantasizes
homosexual intercourse with him in his car. He gets very much exotic by
imagining Vaughan. The sexuality of characters in the novel is not posed in
traditional way. Helen involves in sexual relation with Ballard who has
recently killed her husband in a car accident. Catharine enjoys sex with
Vaughan in the back seat of the car while her husband Ballard is driving them.
Such types of degenerated sexualities are included in the novel. We witness
tipsy-turvy throughout the novel. Disgusting and unimaginable sexual fantasies
keep on materializing. As Armstrong states, in the postmodern world, “sexuality
is not fixed. The climate is one that encourages flexibility and experimentation”
(111). The people are fearless of God and morality. So, they do not have to
worry whether their actions will bring consequences in their future or
afterlife. Day to day encounter with machines make them mechanical in their
conscience. Though it looks weird for us, in futuristic world with highly
sophisticated technology, the formation of new sexuality is utterly possible.
People are experimenting new and searching for new tastes. As nobody cares for
grand narratives, they are free to create petty narratives of their own.
From the classical period to modern period and now to the
postmodern period, the way heroes are presented in fiction is rapidly in flux.
As protagonists of fictions are the reflection of their time, with time
changing so much in contemporary period, we cannot expect to find Herculean
traits in them. After mid twentieth century, the protagonists of the postmodern
novel are more like antihero. Especially in the popular TV shows like Dexter,
Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, the main characters Dexter Morgan, Walter
White and Tony Soprano are antiheroes. Dexter Morgan though works in a Miami
Homicide Department as a blood splatter expert, he himself commits series of
murder. Walter White, a former Chemistry professor, starts to cook meth and
becomes a drug dealer. Though these characters have criminal mentality, they
also have goodness inside them which makes us pity and love them. In postmodern
world, good and evil are not absolute and binary qualities. People have both
the qualities juxtaposed inside them. When the protagonist posses both the
traits, he becomes an antihero. Antiheroes are more realistic than the ideal
heroes in postmodern world. That’s why they are becoming more popular as
readers can identify themselves with such antiheroes. Vaughan is not
necessarily an evil character. He has no organized hatred and ill-conscience
against anyone. Its just his sexual drive and fetishism that constitutes his
identity.
Dr. Robert Vaughan, “nightmare angel of the expressways”
(66) dismantles all the social conventions regarding sexuality and uplifts his
sexuality to the new level of car-crash fetishism. He is a subversive character
who attacks all the pre-established notions of society. Ballard’s Futuristic
novel set in postmodern city of London with technologically advanced
expressways and transportation system is ripe setting for Vaughan to become
such an obsessive character. His obsession with engine, blood and semen is so
extensive that the whole novel is flooded with these words. We find such exotic
words in each and every line of the novel. Though Vaughan is disturbing
character to read, we have pity for him because he is byproduct of
technological advancements. From his antihero character, we come to learn that
too much obsession with machines is not good. Vaughan has both the good and
evil character inside him. He is neither a classical hero nor a villain. He is
a postmodern hero or an antihero in postmodern times who destroys all the
conventions of the society and creates new traits on the basis of his
individual taste.
Armstrong, Julie. Experimental
Fiction: An Introduction for Readers and Writers.
Bloomsbury,
2014.
Ballard, J. G. Crash. Vintage,
2004.
Gerwel, Chris. “The
Universal Makeup of the Western Hero”. Amazing Stories, 14th
Mar.
2013,
https://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/03/crossroads-the-western-hero-in-
speculative-fiction/
Gurung, Rita. The Archetypal
Antihero in Postmodern Fiction. Atlantic Publishers, 2010.
Lyotard, J. François. The
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of
Minneapolis
Press,1984.
Smith, Zadie. “Sex and
wheels: Zadie Smith on JG Ballard's Crash”. The Guardian, 4th
July
2014,
8:00 pm, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/04/zadie-smith-jg-
ballard-crash
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