‘Fruit of Gold’, a Creative Writing Piece with an accompanying Critical Essay

Abstract

A novella-length story, satirically exploring the consequences of big business muscling small enterprises out of the way in their pursuit of global commercial dominance. Set in Italy and Argentina, 'Fruit of Gold' is a comedy-drama chronicle of ordinary people being pushed around by forces beyond their comprehension or control.

Accompanying this fiction piece is a long essay on the 'nostalgic-Utopian' worldview, which entails viewing history as a succession of degradations, and that the world is getting worse with the passing of time. This essay is split into three chapters. The first focuses on a general understanding of nostalgic-Utopianism, principally looking at the writings of Paul Kingsnorth, Fredric Jameson, and Thomas Pynchon. The second chapter focuses in on Pynchon, analysing the nostalgic-Utopian framework employed in his novels. The final chapter looks at language and nationality, where they fit in to the economistic perception of the world advanced by the nostalgic-Utopians, and how they factor into James Joyce's 'Ulysses'.