Shattering Citadels

An Exploration into Noir’s Plurality and It’s Function in The Big Clock and Watchmen

Narrative perspective is a tricky thing. Depending on the narrative voice, the delineation of information is by no means guaranteed as accurate, complete, consistent, or even aligned with typical temporal limitations or even the limitations of aesthetic consciousness. From Chaucer’s episodic The Canterbury Tales, Austen’s conversational novels, Eliot’s fragmented The Waste Land, Joyce’s disparate Ulysses or his hypnagogic Finnegan’s Wake, literary history is perforated with narratives that play with the limitations of language and people’s narrative tendencies. This is the field of narratology, an exploration in the abstract manifestation of a work as merely “one of its possible realizations” (Todorov 70). These structuralist approaches exist with simple and complex structures: A. J. Greimas’s belief that literature is fundamentally structured in binary oppositions that “shapes our language, our experience, and the narratives” with six fundamental actants and another three (contractural, performative, and disjunctive structures) possible narrative sequences (Tyson 225); Barthes’s five codes (hermeneutic, proairetic, semantic, symbolic, and cultural) (Felluga) that stress sign systems to frontload meaning onto narratives (Tyson 217); or Todorov’s grammatical analysis of Boccaccio’s The Decameron (Tyson 227). 

However, for this particular exploration of noir elements, Todorov’s emphasis on the subjective nature of interpretation and literary works is most fitting. Todorov asserted that “no social science… is totally free of subjectivity” and that subjective thought is impossible; people can only “try to limit… subjectivity” (Todorov 72). Consequently, his three categories are seeming contradictions of universality and subjectivity for they embrace the instability or relative experience: states as “unstable attributes” associated with emotions and ‘states’ of being, qualities as “more stable attributes” associated with long-term character traits that are often associated with morality, and conditions as “the most stable attributes” associated with social class, sex, faith, etc. Yet, despite these seemingly stable terms, “changes are continually made, and sins continually go unpunished” (Tyson 227) in The Decameron and Todorov’s labels maintain because they embrace the fluidity and instability of human experience.

The noir period embraces a similar subjectivity with its strong emphasis on “cynicism, pessimism and darkness.” It was particularly influential in the film industry, but many of the films were adaptations of popular novels. The term ‘noir’ itself stemmed from French critics in 1946, associating the themes and visual elements with the word ‘black’ in French (Schrader 8), and the realism of noir films and novels matched the “immediate post-war disillusionment” associated with the “everyday people” (10). The Big Clock, for instance, embraced the immorality of the noir period with murder and infidelity existing as essential plot points. However, Fearing’s decision to juxtapose those elements with multiple narrators, a strong emphasis on a consistent, overarching symbol (the clock), and the world of journalism carries the novel far beyond a popular noir literary piece. While less episodic than The Decameron, the shifting perspectives undermine the stability of one, dominant, objective narrative and elevate plurality.

These same elements then found their way in the 1980s, which became a renaissance for noir-style graphic novels and comic books, many of which borrowed and referenced noir elements that were established in cinema. Hellboy, Sincity (Dark Horse Comics), Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and The Death of Superman (DC Comics) all lead the way for a more mature comicbook narrative for the fittingly named ‘The Dark Ages of Comics’ which attempted to explore superheroes as more “neurotic and tormented; they often resorted to violent methods to cover a whole range of psychological and sexual issues” (Huang). Watchmen, specifically, embraced the subjective nature of morality and narrative storytelling and complicated the ‘hero’ label as many of the heroes were self-identifying despots, delusional idealists, or puppets of a more clever or political power. Combined with the heavy emphasis on the Doomsday clock, parallels between Watchmen and The Big Clock come easy. Ultimately, both pieces heavily emphasize subjectivity narratologically, the constrictions of time symbolically, ambiguous morality thematically, and noir visual elements stylistically. Together, they combine to further the parallax of human and literary experience as, in accordance with Todorov’s structuralism, “Nought may endure but Mutability” (Shelley 16).

Kaleidoscopic Morality

Fearing’s The Big Clock is a seven-eyed creature written with the express purpose of unnerving the reader and piling up anticipation. George Stroud’s perspective dominates the text quantitatively, Louise Patterson’s tonally, Earl Janoth’s delusionally, Steve Hagen sociopathically, and Edward Orlin and Emory Mafferson fill their senary and septenary roles respectively. Georgette Stroud accompanies George’s perspective and complicates the reader’s conception of him. Her narrative also adds tonal complexity and character details that overturn possible conceptions of her husband while leaving readers with a desire for more of her perspective as she is left mostly omitted from the text. However, as a kaleidoscopic arrangement, the pieces function together to enhance darker moral undertones while exploring concepts associated with determinism and temporality. Morality, from one perspective, is left flattened by the moral compass of the story-teller. Fearing breaks from this narrative choice and the multitudinous perspectives stress Todorovian states and the instabilities of the qualities of the characters.

George Stroud is the quantitatively dominating narrative voice. He establishes the narrative with his nebulous rants about ‘the big clock,’ and his narrative is impaled and challenged by the narratives that follow him. The opening focuses on his nebulous nature with pages dedicated to his philosophical and metaphoric rants: “...the big clock was running as usual… Sometimes the hands of the clock actually raced, and at other times they hardly moved at all. But that made no difference to the big clock. The hands could move backward, and the time it told would be right just the same” (385). Considering the limited information provided about George Stroud simply a few pages in, Fearing is intentionally frontloading metaphorical material with expectations of ignorance associated with it. The reader is incapable, at that moment, to properly judge the information or George Stroud’s perspective, but his sophistication and propensity for cerebral musings sets the tone and requests that the reader falls in tow. His first sequence of narratives close with him leaving Pauline as an art collector and adulterer. He considers himself superior to those that are “picture-blind” (421), like Pauline, and he scours the city environment for stimuli (such as Gil’s bar), but his moral virtues or corruptions shine in no great light or contrast to the expectations of a protagonist or hero; his time has not yet come.

Earl Janoth’s narration shifts the tone drastically, diving away from the internal monologues and musings of Stroud and into the utilitarian and homophobic worries of a major newspaper publisher. Fearing continues the emphasis on relativistic reality especially when it came to descriptions of external events: “[Pauline] lay on her back, watching something far away that didn’t move. She was pretending to be unconscious.” Fearing emphasizes the impact of “pretending,” a word that resonates like a cymbal’s crash in an anthem because of the juxtaposition of Pauline’s reality. His accusation of inauthenticity mocks Pauline after lines of blatant violence and disregard: “I kicked her over the table between us… I hit her again… then I hit her twice more… she was lying on the floor, quiet and a little twisted… she didn’t move” (431). This narration results in a conflict between the narration of the novel and the reader’s recreation of the events as they read. As the first jarring line of unreliability, Earl Janoth’s narration begins to pair the delusional realities of Poe’s narrators, twisting and forming the physical events to conform to the fears and desperations of the individual driving the narration.. 

This jarring moment creates a fissure in the reading experience of The Big Clock, and a rather welcome one. From here, Fearing stresses the reliability or unreliability of the narrators and focuses more on the subjectivity of reality. Rather than going into the fantastical realm of the mind (like Poe, for instance), Fearing stays grounded in the physical reality of the city but the descriptions, adjectives, and the selection of detail from the narration all fit each respective narrator’s subjective and equally valid realities. He also uses his personal experience with journalism to build and develop the metaphor of ‘the big clock.’ Fearing’s writings indicate that The Big Clock can be read as an “apt summary of [journalism’s] decline into a being a mere culture industry” (Rajski 136) where “the entrepreneur had lost his function, and hence the entire reason for his existence in the corporation” (137). This Marxist perspective on the novel places the big clock as a metaphor for the turning gears of capitalism as individuals lose their capacity for individual thought and identity in the cogs of the corporate machine; it had reduced intelligence to a “factory-style pursuit of profit… [incapable] of meaningful changes” (138).

Fearing’s The Big Clock responds vehemently against this by holding each character’s reality with equal weight and authority, thus preserving their identity in the face of the identity-consuming corporate machine. Rather than demeaning any particular narrative or jettisoning a particular character into some Dantean abyss, Fearing sticks to a seemingly unsympathetic and imbalanced universe. While Earl Janoth is depicted as a self-serving homophobe, Steve Hagen’s enabling language humanizes Earl: “She deserved it… she was a regular little comic” (434). Steve’s comments and subsequent narration places Earl in the position of a manipulatable fool or a character that, despite his seeming power and wealth, is just as vulnerable and muddled internally as any of the other characters. Steve’s manipulation, placed after Earl’s, ensure that Earl has the opportunity to share his point of view and the subsequent narrations reframe Steve as the possible antagonist and as someone in control over Earl and all the other parts: “It was also typical that [Earl’s] simple mind could not wholly grasp how much was at stake and how much he had jeopardized it. Typical, too, that he had no idea how to control the situation” (437). Even then, Steve’s argument to Earl carries some utilitarian weight, arguing that “...when [Earl] break[s], a lot of others break, too. Whenever a big thing like this goes to pieces-and that is what could happen-a hell of a lot of innocent people, their plans, their homes, their dreams and aspirations, the future of their children, all of that can go to pieces with it.” Only with the subsequent addition of “Myself, for instance” (443) are Steve’s intentions reframed into obvious selfishness. 

Yet, this still poses questions regarding intentionality and muddles the morality of the situation: should Earl be saved from the situation to serve the greatest good for his employees? Regardless of Steve Hagen’s intentions, is he acting in accord with ‘good’ or ‘moral behavior’ if the greatest number of people benefit from his victory? How does society quantify a murder in terms of reaching impact? The reader is left to consistently juggle their judgements on characters as Fearing demands that they frame and reframe characters constantly in different lights, though always cast in a shadow. Thomas Leitch argued that “Ignorance is absolutely essential to the success of the narrative” (Evans 189), and that ignorance and inability to place characters in a definitive moral light furthers the suspense and requests that the readers ‘suture’ the narrative: the viewers is continually “re-positioned or re-inscribed” throughout the narrative (188). The reader is asked to “create meaning of the unfolding text” because Fearing emphasizes the “diegetic world,” making them “responsible, then, to enunciate its signification” (193).

Some balance remains, of course, as the closing lines suggest: “Earl Janoth, ousted publisher, plunges to death” (515). But George Stroud is not punished for his infidelity nor is Steve Hagen for his ruthless sociopathy, and Louise Patterson seems slated to be the next victim in George Stroud’s egocentric worldview. However, the muddled and fragmented morality fits perfectly with noir elements because of its emphasis on “corruption and despair,” and the “aberation of the American character” (Schrader 13). George Stroud’s perseverance in the face of this despair alone makes him heroic in a novel and style notoriously devoid of heroism. He asserts that the “big, silent, invisible clock” continued “as usual,” but would “get around to [him] again” and his greatest virtue and ally was patience or inaction; he did not punch his way to ‘victory’ (however one may quantify that). Yet, he still decided to continue his infidelity, remain unchanged, and persevere in the face of “on serious, near-disaster” (515).

A Broken Pocketwatch

By the 1980s, noir cinema had established itself as a perennial force in the film and novel industry, but comics and graphics novels had just begun exploring ambiguous morality and darkness; they were beginning to mature. Reacting to the Bronze and Silver age of comics, a new variety of comics began to surface with the intention of capturing a more mature audience while using familiar characters. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons responded in kind, exploring a darker, noir morality associated with vigilantism and superpowers in Watchmen. Much like The Big Clock, the narration is driven by a central character with questionable morality that is unraveled throughout the course of the reading experience. His narration is often undercut, challenged, or paralleled with his various counterparts and each new perspective or exposition adds to the complexity of the novel’s ambiguous morality and places into question the nature of any heroic act. These layers are also supplemented with “Tales of the Black Freighter,” adding an allegorical layer to the already diverse cast of perspectives and with the characters that parody or contrast the optimism of heroes such as Superman, Batman, or Captain America. Much like The Big Clock, the graphic novel has a looming clock hovering over the characters and their actions. Unlike Fearing’s novel, Moore and Gibbons highlight these elements using framing, icons, and closure; graphic novels have the added benefit of using visuals to explore diegetic elements of plot.

Watchmen’s primary narrator is Walter Joseph Kovacs, also known as Rorschach. He is depicted wearing a noir-era trench coat, fedora, pin-stripe pants, and a mask with consistently changing patterns on it reflective of the famous rorschach psychological test. His attire is fitting as Moore and Gibbons drew on noir elements from the 1940s, placing the origin of the vigilante crime in the novel in line with The Big Clock’s time period; if they were in the same universe, Hollis Mason might have thrown Earl Janoth out the window. He is “from the world of noir and pulp fiction, where the world is brutal, dark, and filled with human imperfectability” (Ange 12) and is the voice of justice in the novel as well as all characters “discover creative ways to assert meaning, but their respective paths to meaning are more pathological than pure” (11). His actions and rigidity are borderline hyperbolic, but they are reflective of the violence and rigidity of the world around him. As attitudes toward human life, God, and reality shift throughout the course of the novel, Rorschach stays rigid even to his own demise. He is not “defeatist in nature,” but his extreme response to violence has led to judgment because of his indifference to the consequences of his actions. Because Rorschach is a direct enemy of utilitarianism and Mill’s harm principle, some would argue that he “is wrong in his conception of justice because… he does not take into account the negative effect his actions have on others… it is more moral to do the right thing, even if it means much more harm will be done to others in the long run” (15). He is the manifestation of the maxim ‘an eye for an eye,’ and the changing mask could be reflective of his changing response to society. As society changes, Rorschach will change too and with equal measure, as the rorschach psychological test is about how interpretation reveals aspects of the interpreter; Rorschach the character will be a reflection of how society interprets heroism and morality.

Many of the interactions between men and women are also centered around sexual promiscutiy and numerous, key plot points are centered around rape or abuse of the female counterpart. Early in the novel, as Moore and Gibbons outline the origin of the Watchmen themselves (with the Minutemen), they depict a two-page rape sequence between Eddie Blake (The Comedian; perpetrator) and Sally Jupiter (Silk Spectre; victim) (2.7-8). The sequence sets the tone for the creator’s violent and aggressive treatment of sex, as even the sexual tension between Laurie Jupiter and Daniel Dreiberg (Nite Owl II) is based on violence. In chapter 3, Sally Jupter’s relationship with Dr. Jonathan Osterman (Doctor Manhattan) is left fragmented by his disconnection to her: “I’m sorry. I don’t know what stimulates you anymore” (3.5). Laurie finds refuge in the relationship of a fellow superhero and friend, but the date ends with a violent brawl where the two pulverize a group that attempts to violently accost them (12-15). Moore and Gibbons split the violent sequence using scene-to-scene transitions between the frames and the only dialogue comes from Doctor Manhattan’s interview with the public. The reader is left to use the graphic novel principle of closure to complete the subtext between the two: “This phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole has a name. It’s called closure…In an incomplete world, we must depend on closure for our very survival” (McCloud 63). This element of graphic novels as well as the ability to represent characters with visual icons (rather than just language) allows Moore and Gibbons to speak to their readers using more than dialogue, but imagery as well. When Laurie Jupier states that “I’m shaking. Once the adrenaline wears off I always feel sorta weird…” (16), the brutal violence of the sequence and Sally Jupiter’s reaction suggests a sense of enjoyment in the violence and rage of their response to the mugging. The reader is left to not only use inference from the dialogue, but closure to reconstruct a reality fitting for noir: even as muggers or criminals receive a sense of violent justice, the perpetrators of that justice are no less morally superior.

The authors then complicate the morality of this action as Laurie Jupiter was conceived during Sally Jupiter’s rape sequence: “Blake, that bastard, and my m-mother, they… they pulled a gag on me is what they did!... My whole life’s a joke. One big, stupid, meaningless…” (9.26). Revising the sequence after the completion of the novel reveals how much is left for the reader to reconstruct as many of the sexual elements are left for the reader to ‘close.’ Doctor Manhattan’s citadel on Mars then collapses as Laurie is disillusioned and the illusions of both their existences crashes. Much like the sequences prior, they utilize the elements unstated in order to have the reader reconstruct the characters’ realities, but the frontloading of dark, violent, and morally ambiguous themes associated with noir guide the reader to arrive at the conclusion best fitting the grim tone of the novel.

Besides the visual elements, Doctor Manhattan’s association with the clock motif furthers themes of nihilism, another popular theme in the noir period. Just like The Big Clock maintained a sense of hopelessness and insignificance with George Stroud, Watchmen feeds off this nihilism as even the most powerful characters are still subject to forces out of their control; they are consumed by a different variation of ‘the big clock.’ The doomsday clock begins every chapter as a persistent reminder of the existential threat of nuclear war ever present in the background of the narrative, but watchpieces have an extremely personal relationship for the God-like, Superman figure of the novel. Dr. Jonathan Osterman’s history is associated with a pocketwatch, as his interest in them was undermined by his father. As his father destroyed his pocket watch, he lectures that “this atomic science… this is what the world will need! Not pocket-watches!” The line carries layers of irony associated with his claim as the atomic science praised by his father is the greatest threat to humanity, a claim intended to criticize the Cold War era obsession with producing nuclear weapons. His father further asserts that “Professor Einstein says that time differs from place to place… If time is not true, what purpose have watchmakers, hein?” (4.3). But when Jonathan Osterman becomes Doctor Manhattan, his relationship with humanity is based on finding the relativity in time that he experiences without relativity and without the limitation of space.

Doctor Manhattan is able to process time as a flattened, simultaneous thing; the nebeneinander. The concept of past, present, and future are no longer his limitations and his consciousness is fragmented because of it. His entire backstory in chapter 3 uses consistent scene-to-scene transitions that displace time in the reading experience and push the reader to conceive of his narrative simultaneously, rather than sequentially. Thus, his participation in Vietnam (14), the frequent fights with his first wife (16), his first sexual act with Laurie Jupiter (17), and his current “standing still” on Mars (17) exist simultaneously in his consciousness. In the absence of the sequential nature of consciousness, Doctor Manhattan is created and Jonathan Osterman is left in the recesses of his consciousness. For McCloud, readers must depend on closure for their “very survival” (63), but Doctor Manhattan needs it for his humanity. 

The Law is the Law

When Todorov analyzed the Decameron, he explained that each narrative had these elements: “X violentes a law [then] Y must punish X [then] X tried to avoid being punished.” This causal sequence then leads to either “Y violat[ing] a law” or “Y does not punish X” or “Y believes that X is not violating the law” (Todorov 73). His exploration of the Decameron hinged on the law and the characters’ response to it, much like the morality and causality in these texts hinges on their response to the law or moral law. That conflict with the law is essential in Watchmen, where “The disappointment of the vigilantes at the inadequacy of the system brings to the surface the complexity of their human, that is fallible, nature, along with a sense of frustration and loneliness” (Salvadori 292). Each character’s relationship with each other is based on their relationship and interpretation of the laws of the world or the laws of morality. Rorschach’s ultimate demise and heartless disintegration is associated with his moral rigidity, a rigidity associated with truth and transparency (reflective of Batman’s conception of Justice): “People must be told. Evil must be punished… [You, Doctor Manhattan,] must protect Veidt’s new Utopia. One more body amongst foundations makes little difference” (12.23-24). But the reader is left with a feeling of inadequacy because of the fallibility of every hero and every perspective in the text.

The Watchmen’s causality is further complicated because of the layered narratives. Rorschach’s narrative is often split by Jonathan Osterman’s ascent (or descent) into a nihilistic God, Edward Blake’s disillusionment and descent to the logic extreme of his cause, Daniel Dreiberg’s and Laurie Jupiter’s infidelity and romance, or any of the adjacent narratives not yet explored (“Tales of the Black Freighter,” the origins of the Minutemen, or the original Nite Owl). Regardless, the plurality of morality provides an unstable framework for the characters of Watchmen but grounding for the readers of it. As the narratives layer, each character is better appraised and the morality of the reader is honed in the whetstone of empathy and perspective.

For The Big Clock, George Stroud did not violate any specific law in his affair with Pauline, but the ‘big clock’ of reality and corporate consumption seems to have functioned against him as Stroud violated the law of marriage, then Stroud tries to avoid being punished. He is ultimately left untouched by the “big, silent, invisible clock” that was “moving along as usual,” but the murderer, Earl Janoth, was not. Earl Janoth violated moral and legal laws associated with marriage and murder, the Big Clock must punish him, and he attempts to avoid it. His death is ultimately not a result of some effort from a character or superhero emblematic of Justice, but of a causal universe paralleling a Buddhist understanding of karma. The causality and points of view are far less complicated than Watchmen, but the layered perspectives still add the same layer of required, empathetic closure by the reader; the reader is asked to reconstruct all the missing pieces not delineated by each changing narrator.

Shattering Mars’s Citadel

Parallax is a primarily astronomic term used to label the process of angular calculation used to determine depth. Using parallax, astronomers can determine the distance of stars. Parallax is also used by human beings and animals regularly in the creation of depth perception. In essence, it is the conflation and the binding of viewpoints in order to create depth and depth perception. In Ulysses, parallax is a prevalent concept used “as this figurative representation of life as a series of distorted sensory encounters translated and made sense of through many angles of perspective” (Cantwell 116), humanizing the scientific procedure in order to create clarity and arrive at a more aesthetically accurate variation of truth. In essence, the various narrators (Bloom, the Citizen, Gerty, Stephen, Penelope, various unnamed, Paddy Dignam, etc.) are all various viewpoints that help create the aesthetic existence of Dublin and their lives. As each viewpoint is revealed, their universality, interconnectedness, and dependence ultimately forces the reader to empathize and Joyce’s reality is to endeavor to “release society from the confines of such diluted knowledge as was pandered to people through imperial information channels.” People are in a “slow imprisonment in the sudden profusion of print culture” and there is an “elemental tension between heart and mind in the ever-elusive search for self” (Cantwell 120).

This is the function of the narrative perspectives in Watchmen and The Big Clock. Without the shifting perspectives, the narrative would be cast in a monolith of experience. Readers would construct a floating citadel of morality and judgment devoid of the reality and complexity of real human experience. Complex ideas and deconstructive, nihilistic expressions of literature ultimately uphold relativism and the incredible variety of human experience, however grim it might occasionally be. Yet ‘parallax’ offers an optimistic resolution for the occasionally grim claims of noir-influenced texts. If the function of noir is to explore the darker morality and the ambiguity of experience, then the logical conclusion is the ascension of plurality and the honing of nuanced structures of moral principles. If the characters of noir are sullied or should be treated as cautionary tales, then they are a reflection of what is not to become as society advances into the unforeseen future. Or, if the characters are doomed to become a bloodied, disintegrated stains in the snow by a unempathetic God functioning ruthlessly by a variation of the utilitarian harm principle, then the just defiance in the face of annihilation serves as a model for action: “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden” (Frankl 86). 

However, it is only through the recognition of plurality and the uniqueness of human suffering that individuals can arrive at a functioning, optimistic conclusion. Texts that explore this plurality act as whetstones for humanity’s own attachment to a monolithic consciousness that should really strive to explore and empathize with the grand variety of human experience. Otherwise, people are left castaway on Mars building citadels from a set of singular beliefs and perspectives, disconnected from the suffering and consequential matters of those left to suffer by our unempathetic indifference. It is only in the confrontation of the dark, the morally ambiguous, the grim, and the ‘noir’ that humanity is capable of honing and pluralizing and actualizing their existence. 

Works Cited

Ange, Stacy R. Who Watches the Watchmen: The Revaluation of the Superhero in the Nihilistic World of Alan Moore's “Watchmen”, East Carolina University, Ann Arbor, 2011. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/who-watches-watchmen-revaluation-superhero/docview/918690745/se-2?accountid=25320.

Cantwell, Cara Siobhán. “‘The Portals of Discovery’: Popular Literature, Parallax, and the Culture of Reading in Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</Em>.” Nordic Irish Studies, vol. 16, Dalarna University Centre for Irish Studies, 2017, pp. 109–22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26486980.

Evans, T. Jeff. “Narratology in Kenneth Fearing’s ‘Big Clock.’” The Journal of Narrative Technique, vol. 23, no. 3, Department of English Language and Literature, Eastern Michigan University, 1993, pp. 188–200, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30225391.

Fearing, Kenneth. “The Big Clock.” Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s & 40s, Library Of America, 1997, pp. 383–522.

Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Barhes: On the Five Codes." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Date of last update, which you can find on the home page. Purdue U. Date you accessed the site. http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/narratology/modules/barthescodes.html.

Frankl, Viktor E. Man’s Search for Meaning. 1959. 4th ed., Beacon Press, 1992, edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/3403095/mod_resource/content/1/56ViktorFrankl_Mans%20Search.pdf. 

By Pavel Tretyak

Written March 27, 2022

Last Edited March 9, 2023