Professor: Ma’am Aasma

Iram
Presenter: Rabia Latif
Roll No. 01
Subject: Postmodern
American Literature
MPhil English Literature
Minhaj University
Lahore
NAKED LUNCH
BY
WILLIAM S.
BURROUGHS
NOVEL:
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative
fiction, normally written in prose form, and
which is typically published as a book. The
present English word for a long work of prose
fiction derives from the Italian: novella for
"new", "news", or "short story of something
new". A novel is a long, fictional narrative
which describes intimate human experiences.
The novel in the modern era usually makes
use of a literary prose style.
Continue…….
Length:
The novel is today the longest genre of narrative prose fiction, followed
by the novella. However, in the 17th century, critics saw the romance as
of epic length and the novel as its short rival. A precise definition of the
differences in length between these types of fiction is however, not
possible. The philosopher and literary critic Gyorgy Lukacs argued that
the requirement of length is connected with the notion that a novel should
encompass the totality of life.
 
 

BIOGRAPHY:
William S. Burroughs, in
full William Seward Burroughs
was born on February 5, 1914 in
Missouri, U.S and died on August 2,
1997 in Kansas, America. He was an
American writer of experimental
novels that evoke, in deliberately
erratic prose, a nightmarish,
sometimes wildly humorous world.
His sexual explicitness (he was an
avowed and outspoken homosexual)
and the frankness with which he
dealt with his experiences as a drug
addict won him a following among
writers of the Beat Movement.
Continue…..
 He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist. He wrote
eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of
essays. He was also briefly known by the pen name William Lee. He was born into
a wealthy family. He attended Harvard University, studied English and
studied anthropology as a postgraduate.
 After being turned down by the Office of Strategic Services and the Navy, he picked
up the drug addiction that affected him for the rest of his life. Much of Burroughs'
work is semiautobiographical, and is primarily drawn from his experiences as a
heroin addict. Burroughs found success with his confessional first novel,
Junkie (1953), but is perhaps best known for his third novel, Naked Lunch
(1959). Naked Lunch became the subject of one of the last major literary censorship
cases in the United States after its US publisher, Grove Press, was sued for violating
a Massachusetts obscenity statute. Burroughs also popularized the literary cut-up
technique in works such as The Nova Triology.
Continue…..
 He attended the Los Almos Ranch School in New Mexico, which was
stressful for him. The school was a boarding school for the wealthy,
"where the spindly sons of the rich could be transformed into manly
specimens". Burroughs kept journals documenting an erotic attachment
to another boy. According to his own account, he destroyed these later,
ashamed of their content. He kept his sexual orientation concealed
from his family well into adulthood, due to the context in which he grew
up and from which he fled – that is, a "family where displays of affection
were considered embarrassing". He became a well-known homosexual
writer after the publication of Naked Lunch in 1959.
 
Foundation of the Novel:
 Burroughs was exposed to Brion Gysin’s cut-up technique. He began slicing up
phrases and words to create new sentences. At the Beat Hotel Burroughs
discovered "a port of entry" into Gysin's canvases: "I don't think I had ever seen
painting until I saw the painting of Brion Gysin." The two would cultivate a long-term
friendship that revolved around a mutual interest in artworks and cut-up techniques.
Scenes were slid together with little care for narrative.
 Perhaps thinking of his crazed physician, Dr. Benway, he described Naked
Lunch as a book that could be cut into at any point. Although not considered
science fiction, the book does seem to forecast AIDS, liposuction and the
crack pandemic. Excerpts from Naked Lunch were first published in the United
States in 1958. The novel was initially rejected by City Lights Books. But Allen
Ginsberg managed to get excerpts published in Black Mountain Review and Chicago
Review.
Continue…
 Irving Rosanthel, student editor of Chicago
Review promised to publish more excerpts
from Naked Lunch, but he was fired from his
position in 1958 after Chicago Daily
News columnist Jack Mabley called the first
excerpt obscene. However, the United States
Postmaster General ruled that copies could not
be mailed to subscribers on the basis of
obscenity laws.
  John Ciardi wrote a positive review of the work,
prompting a telegram from Allen Ginsberg
praising the review. This controversy
made Naked Lunch interesting to Girodias
again, and he published the novel in 1959.
Continue….
 After the novel was published, it slowly became notorious across
Europe and the United States, garnering interest from not just members
of the counterculture of the 1960’s but also literary critics.
 Once published in the United States, Naked Lunch was prosecuted as
obscene by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, followed by other
states. In 1966, the Massachusetts Supreme Court declared the work
"not obscene" on the basis of criteria developed largely to defend the
book. The case against Burroughs' novel still stands as the last
obscenity trial against a work of literature – that is, a work consisting of
words only, and not including illustrations or photographs – prosecuted in
the United States.
About the Title:
Burroughs adds, "The title means
exactly what the words say: NAKED
Lunch—a frozen moment when
everyone sees what is on the end of
every fork." Burroughs's explanation
urges careful examination of food,
composed of the dead flesh of
animals and cooked or dying plant
matter. The lunch is symbolic of the
decay and waste present in daily life,
especially the daily life of a drug
Summary:
 The United States and Mexico
Naked Lunch begins with the narrator, also known as William Lee or just Lee, as he tries to evade New
York City police. They want to arrest him for using heroin. He dodges an officer by hopping on a subway
train. On the train he talks with a young man who seems interested in his stories about his fellow
junkies, the Rube and the Vigilante. The narrator witnesses the bodily decay of other junkies who hang
out in an automat, a vending machine-type cafeteria. Under pressure from the police pursuit, he
decides to leave town.
The narrator travels across the United States, through Philadelphia—where the narrator and his
unnamed traveling companions abandon the Rube. They go on to Chicago, St. Louis, and Houston
before buying a large quantity of heroin in New Orleans and proceeding to Mexico.

 Freeland
After Mexico, the narrator proceeds a country of Freeland. The narrator is "assigned" to work with Dr.
Benway as part of Islam Inc., a shadowy organization whose motives are unclear and primarily driven
by individual agents. Benway runs a Reconditioning Center where he conducts unethical and tortuous
experiments on drug addicts and homosexuals. They are forced to flee the facility when a computer
malfunction sets the inmates free and unleashes total chaos.
Continue…
 Interzone
The scene then shifts to a realm the narrator calls Interzone, and the plot becomes disjointed. The
narrator describes the surreal experience of a man named Carl who becomes divorced from reality
when he goes to visit his friend Joselito in a sanitarium. A dealer/addict identified as the Sailor goes to a
plaza to buy a substance called Black Meat from creatures called Mugwumps. Dr. Benway reappears to
perform surgeries on two patients. Neither of them appears to survive. After detox, the narrator meets
an old friend who has attempted to kick his heroin addiction with questionable results. About 10 years
into his time in Interzone, the narrator must visit the County Clerk. He pretends to agree with the Clerk's
racism to avoid eviction from his apartment.
The narrator provides additional descriptions of life in Interzone, a city where drugs and sex of all kinds
are freely available. The threat of revolution against colonial influences hovers around the margins of
daily life. Interzone is run by four opposing political parties: the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the
Divisionists, and the Factualists. These parties also influence the narrator's involvement in Islam Inc.,
an organization without a clear agenda aside from the preferences of its individual agents. The narrator
describes an orgy hosted by another Islam Inc. agent, Hassan. Another agent, named A.J., is known for
playing elaborate and subversively dangerous practical jokes. A.J. hosts an annual party where he
shows a blue (pornographic) movie featuring a trio engaging in lurid sexual acts that culminates in
hangings.
Continue…

Two other agents, Clem and Jody, disrupt a Muslim funeral in Interzone's marketplace. This act typifies
their worldwide travels, sowing mayhem in ongoing attempts to make the United States look bad on the
world stage.

 Return to New York

After the Sailor reappears and meets a young man at a café in the Interzone and exchange drugs for
sexual favors, the story shifts back to New York City. The narrator is caught by two narcotics officers,
Hauser and O'Brien. A struggle ensues, and the narrator shoots the officers and goes into hiding at a
bath house. The next day he can find no reports of the shooting in the papers, so he calls the city's
narcotics bureau. He speaks to a lieutenant who has never heard of Hauser or O'Brien. The narrator
takes this as a sign he can no longer access the intersections of different realities. The novel ends with a
preface in which William S. Burroughs explains his motives for writing Naked Lunch. He sought to present
a look inside the mind of a drug addict.
 
Timeline of Events
 New York

The narrator goes on the run from the police in New York City.
 New York
The Vigilante is put into a federal mental institution.
 Philadelphia
The narrator leaves the Rube after their arrest.
 Mexico
The narrator arrives in Mexico and obtains cocaine.
 Freeland
The narrator meets Dr. Benway and tours his facility in Freeland.
 Interzone
The Sailor visits the Meet Café in Interzone to obtain Black Meat.
Continue…
 Hospital
Narrator goes through detox.

 Interzone
Lee meets with an old friend who has gotten off
drugs.
 Interzone
Hassan hosts an orgy in his rumpus room.
 Interzone
A.J. shows a film of sex and death at his annual
party.
 Interzone
The audience at a conference kills a man who turns
into a giant centipede.
Continue…
 Interzone
The Party Leader and others observe ordinary
people in the city's market square.
 Various locations
A.J. conducts a number of crazy stunts for Islam Inc.
 Interzone

Lee acts racist to keep from getting evicted from his

rented house.
 Freeland

Dr. Benway uncovers Carl Peterson's buried homosexual

past.
 New York

An old junkie takes a surreal trip through his city.

Continue…
 New York or Interzone
The Sailor picks up a boy going through severe
cocaine withdrawal.
 New York
The Sailor gives a boy he picked up a shot of
heroin.
 New York
Lee is caught by narcotics officers, whom he shoots.
 New York
Lee discovers the narcotics officers he shot didn't
exist.
 
Major Characters
1.Narrator
The narrator serves as an alter ego for William Burroughs. The narrator flees
narcotics agents in New York and travels extensively through the United States,
Mexico, and an alternate version of this world. He samples drugs, attempts to go
through rehab, and goes to work for a shadowy organization called Islam Inc. He
documents the exploits of his fellow Islam Inc. agents, as well as the locals of the
places he visits. The narrator seems disconnected from all of them, meeting many
people but isolated from all of them.
2. Dr. Benway
Dr. Benway is put in charge of a Reconditioning Center in Freeland, where he
conducts torturous experiments on his patients in the guise of scientific study and
"treatment." He considers himself highly skilled as a surgeon, but he seems more
interested in inflicting pain and harm on the people he encounters. He works with
the narrator but seems to have little interest in the narrator's addictions or sexual
behavior, though he is highly interested in these habits in others.
Continue…
3. A.J
A.J. is an agent of Islam Inc. who operates under the cover of being a fun-loving
international playboy.  His long list of pranks includes inducing an orgy at a U.S. Embassy
function and opening a boys' school with a homoerotic statue in the front entrance. He
appears harmless as a jokester, but his real purpose seems to involve disrupting the status
quo wherever he goes—an agenda that seems politically motivated given his associations
with Islam Inc. However, it is unclear what he means to accomplish, precisely. A.J. hosts
an annual party that seems a debauched occasion. One of these parties features
entertainment in the form of a blue (pornographic) movie that features the performers
alternately copulating with and killing each other.
Continue…
 
4. Hassan
Hassan begins his career as The Shoe Store Kid, exchanging sexual
favors with foot fetishists for drugs. He makes a fortune trading in
"slunks," the afterbirths of cows. He expands his interests to include
other drugs and opens a sex shop in Yokohama. He is also described as
a "notorious Liquefactionist." He belongs to the Liquefactionist party in
Interzone. Hassan's perversions come to the fore at an orgy he hosts in
his "rumpus room," which includes a vast range of sexual behavior and
violence.
Minor Characters
Clem and Jody operate as a unit for Islam Inc. They are said to be sympathetic to the
Clem and Jody
Russians, so they travel the world wreaking havoc in the name of making the United States
look bad.

Andrew Keif Andrew Keif is a novelist living in Interzone.

Aracknid Aracknid is a chauffeur in Interzone, best known for being both straight and unattached.

The Beagle is a drug addict who shoots up during the blue (pornographic) movie at A.J.'s
Beagle
party.

Dr. Berger Dr. Berger hosts a radio program in which he talks to sufferers of various mental illnesses.

Brad is a gay man who moves to New York and becomes a jewelry designer, eventually ripping
Brad
off his clients to pay his gambling debts.

Bradley the Bradley the Buyer is an undercover narcotics agent in Mexico who derives satisfaction from
Buyer rubbing against his customers and eventually bodily absorbs his boss.
Continue…
Carl Peterson, who may or may not be Joselito's friend, is forced to disclose his past
Carl Peterson
homosexual experience under Dr. Benway's inquisition.

Carl is a man who has a hallucinatory experience when he goes to visit his friend Joselito in
Carl
a sanitarium. He may or may not also be Carl Peterson.

Clarence Cowie is the subject of Dr. Berger's experiment to produce a "deanxietized man."
Clarence Cowie
He transforms into a giant centipede and is killed by the audience.

County Clerk The County Clerk is a racist and corrupt official in Interzone.

The Expeditor escapes the humiliation of being president of the Island near Interzone by
Expeditor
changing his name and expediting imports into Interzone.

The Gimp is a junkie who turns informer. He is killed via a hot shot, or a shot of poison passed
Gimp
off as heroin, as retribution.

Mr. Hyslop Mr. Hyslop is A.J.'s secretary. He seems unenthusiastic, but he goes along with A.J.'s antics.
 Continue…
The Inspector is interviewed by Your Reporter while he applies ointment to treat pubic
Inspector
lice. He shakes the Reporter's hand with ointment still on his own hand.

Jane Jane is a prostitute in Mexico. She dies a year after she meets the narrator.

Jim is Brad's partner who meets him in jail and gets revenge on one of Brad's former
Jim
clients.

Joe is a café worker who sees the Sailor pick up a young man for an exchange of sex and
Joe
drugs.

Johnny Johnny is one of the performers in the blue movie A.J. shows at his annual party.

Joselito Joselito is a young man who is diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanitarium.

Leif Leif is an importer cursed with terrible luck, trying to get a shipment of K.Y. into Interzone.
Continue…
Mark Mark is one of the performers in the blue movie shown at A.J.'s annual party.

Marvie is an importer and exporter who gets involved with a complicated deal to ship
Marvie
K.Y. into Interzone.

Mary Mary is one of the performers in the blue movie shown at A.J.'s annual party.

The Rube is one of the narrator's fellow junkies in New York, but he is left behind
Rube
when he becomes a liability.

The Vigilante is a junkie prone to fighting and killing, eventually sent to a mental
Vigilante
institution

Miguel visits the narrator shortly after having kicked his heroin habit. The narrator
Miguel
finds his presence discomforting, as he is still using at the time.
Naked Lunch Literary Elements
• Genre
Science fiction

• Setting and Context

America and Mexico in the 1950's.

• Narrator and Point of View

William Lee, in the first-person.

• Tone and Mood

The tone is of hope and discovery; the mood is tense and uncertain.

• Protagonist and Antagonist

William Lee is the protagonist; drug addiction is the antagonist.

• Major Conflict
The major conflict of the novel occurs when William Lee begins his journey from America to Mexico, in order to escape the
police who are chasing him.

• Climax
The climax of the story is reached when Lee reaches the market and finds out that Black Meat is sold there.
Continue…
Foreshadowing
William Lee's reliance on drugs is foreshadowed by his poor upbringing, and the examples that his mother set.
Understatement
The struggle for drug addicts to seek help is understated throughout the novel.
Allusions
The story alludes to the strong power that the government has over its inhabitants, through its use of the police.
Imagery
The images of violent orgies as a means for William Lee to escape his reality are present in the novel.
Paradox
The denial of the existence of O'Brien and Hauser when William Lee makes his phone call to the police is an
example of paradox in the story.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between the struggle of Lee to seek help and the poor life that he ends up living as a result.
 
Symbols
• Safety Pin and Dropper
These objects represent the sense of desperation addicts feel when they need a fix. When withdrawal symptoms set in, they are
willing to use any instruments available to get the drugs into their bodies. The safety pin reveals little concern for sanitation or
for personal pain. The only thing that matters is the fix.
• Noose
Nooses and execution by hanging figure prominently in two sexually explicit scenes. One of these is the orgy in Hassan’s
rumpus room. The other is the blue (pornographic) movie A.J. shows at his annual party. In each of these scenes, a character
hangs another character midcoitus. Burroughs describes these scenes as a satirical criticism of capital punishment. The nooses,
placed in the context of an explicit sexual scenario, represent the "obscene, barbaric, and disgusting anachronism" of public
execution. These scenes highlight hypocrisy in society.
• Black Meat
Black Meat is a substance derived from the flesh of giant centipedes that live in the polluted waters around Interzone. As the
Sailor's exchange with "Fats" it is revealed that this material is highly addictive and difficult to obtain. At the same time, the
Black Meat is very much in demand. Black Meat serves as a symbol of all drugs because it is addictive, hard to get, and
requires users to enter into arrangements with unsavory characters. In this case the strange creatures called Mugwumps are the
unsavory characters.
• Steely Dan
Steely Dan is the name given to a series of sex toys. These mechanical phallic sex devices are used in the blue movie  A.J.
shows at his party. They represent the technologies of the post-World War II era. These items create a world that is more
convenient but also more isolating. The Steely Dan reduces the already impersonal sex of the blue movie to something literally
void of human connection.
 
Themes
• Drug Addiction
Drug addiction lies at the heart of Naked Lunch. The novel portrays the inner life of a drug addict. They administer their
drugs using whatever instruments and means are necessary, and if their drug of choice is unavailable, they substitute one
substance for another. The vivid description of the Rube's waxy and decaying flesh in Chapter 3 provides a clear illustration of
the effects these drugs have on their users. The boy in Chapter 20 who is afflicted with imaginary "coke bugs" highlights the
desperation addicts face when a fix isn't readily available. Other characters such as Bradley the Buyer show how addiction can
take many forms.
• Sexuality as Addiction
The other primary addiction driving the characters in Naked Lunch is sex. Homosexual behavior figures prominently, notable
because when the novel was written, gay relationships were carefully hidden and conducted illicitly, often in dangerous
circumstances. The violent portrayals of sexual activity, such as A. J.’s blue (pornographic) movie and Hassan’s orgy, criticize
the risks inherent in driving any kind of behavior underground. Sex and addiction are intertwined in the bodies of the
Mugwumps. Addicts participate in demeaning sexual acts , because they are not able to live openly with their addictions.
These scenes also highlight the hypocrisy about sex in American culture. . While Americans may sexualize entertainment stars
and produce pornography, they may also hold strict, puritanical views of sexuality. The exaggerated portrayal of sex, and the
repressed American women who arrive at Hassan's rumpus room, illustrate how these restrictions are psychologically
destructive.
Continue…
• Government

William S. Burroughs reasserts narcotics addiction is the world's most pressing "public health problem." He criticizes
government-sanctioned solutions to this crisis, calling "anti-drug hysteria ... a deadly threat to personal freedoms and due-
process protections of the law everywhere." The text of Naked Lunch reveals a strong distrust of governments and authority. He
describes the president (presumably the president of the United States) as a junkie who engages in homoerotic acts to get his
fix. This isn't true in a literal sense, but it points to the president's (and other government officials') addiction to power. Outside
the United States, in the alternate realities of Interzone and Freeland, the government is no better. Interzone is ruled by assorted
political parties, each of which is equally unappealing. They are all driven by a desire for absolute control over the bodies and
minds of the citizens. Only their means of control differ.
• Medicines
Dr. Benway, the most prominent of the doctors, is actually both a physician and government entity. He uses his skills to torture
or "recondition" patients who don't conform to the values mandated by the government and society of Freeland. Notably, this is
not far removed from actual treatments for homosexuality during the 19th and 20th centuries. He performs unnecessary
operations using unconventional methods, and he expresses no concern when patients die, considering death just part of a day's
work.
Dr. "Fingers" Shafer is another sinister doctor, revealed to have stood trial in the past for performing "forcible lobotomy" on an
untold number of patients. He conducts experiments on a man that eventually turn him into a monstrous black centipede. This
represent a criticism of the ubiquity of lobotomies as a treatment for mental illness. Readers should note that until the late 20th
century, homosexuality was treated as a mental disorder in Western nations. This misunderstanding of mental illness is also
visible in Dr. Berger's radio show.
Similes
1.The Cold Burn like a vast hive
The narrator uses a simile to compare the way in which his own symptom, The Cold Burn covered his body to a
vast hive.
2. Spine like a frozen hydraulic jack
In his expression of how a junky wants to be cold, a simile is used to bring out how a junky wants to be inside
and sit around with a spine like a frozen hydraulic jack. This simile also facilitates imagery.
3. His face lights up like a pinball machine
After the narrator tells the boy that he is one of them, a simile is used to express the way in which his face lit up
to a pinball machine. 
4. Face torn like a broken film
The narrator uses a simile to bring out the way in which the junky's face was torn. The simile enhances imagery
as the reader is able to imagine his face, torn like a broken film.
5. The flesh came up like wax
The narrator uses a simile to express how the flesh peeled off when he grabbed the Rube's thigh.
 
 
Style
According to Chapter 24, "Atrophied Preface" in Naked Lunch, "You can cut into Naked Lunch at any
intersection point." The novel is composed of a series of vignettes, loosely related to each other,
designed to be read in more or less any sequence. Chapter 1 and Chapter 23 detail the narrator's
experience with law enforcement in New York City. They also provide a kind of framing device for the
intervening chapters, which move between different imagined countries. Even these two chapters
operate with a vague chronology. The narrator's paranoia and evasion of police could be read as a
response to the (probably) imagined shooting of two narcotics officers in Chapter 23. It's equally
possible Chapter 1 and Chapter 23 have no other causal relationship other than the narrator's addiction
and his presence in New York. The remaining chapters follow no specific plot line or otherwise clearly
discernible temporal relationship. Settings are equally nebulous.
The language is sometimes poetic, sometimes vulgar. All these characteristics are in keeping with the
ideals of Beat writing, valuing creation of an impression or emotional response for the reader over
traditional storytelling.
Satire
Burroughs exaggerates grotesque presentations of 1950s life outside the American mainstream culture.
The novel is critical of the stifling postwar American culture that makes people want to take drugs or
otherwise pursue an alternate experience of reality.
Post Modern American Features:
 Temporal distortion:
The narrative of Naked Lunch resist linear and logical development of storylines. Characters suddenly leap from
one location to another without any transitional element and the chronological order of scenes is left in doubt.
Readers develop their own understanding. This unique mechanism of meaning-making is what called postmodern
narrative logic and temporal distortion which is one of the postmodern features.

 Paradox, Taboo and Metafiction:

"Naked Lunch" is a dark and wild ride filled with paranoia, elation, horror, erotic fantasies, opium dreams and
hallucinations. Novelist William S. Burroughs extrapolates the terror of heroin withdrawal into a vivid scene of
horrible creatures drinking in a dark cafe. The title of the Naked Lunch suggests a rather interesting but, at the
same time, expected theme such as monstrosity as a result of the numerous rapes, tortures, sexual and even
cannibalistic scenes characterizing the text. Moreover, Doctor Benway’s dialogue with the nurse seems to be
uttered by two automatons when the former describes Doctor Tetrazzini: “He would start by throwing a scalpel
across the room into the patient and then make his entrance like a ballet dancer. […] His speed was incredible: “I
don’t give them time to die,” he would say. Tumors put him in a frenzy of rage. ‘Undisciplined cells! he would
snarl’, […]” (52). It is showing paradox in the novel. Furthermore, Burroughs is simply carrying out a process of
sudden anarchy, by abolishing the traditional hierarchical patterns of life and narrative techniques. Taboo subjects
like homosexuality can be seen as a matter of discussion in the novel.
Continue…
 Paranoia:
A paranoid fear of state agencies of control is a prominent thematic concern in postmodern fiction. In Burroughs’s
Naked Lunch the commentary on social control is best illustrated through his creation of madness in Post-1945
British and American fiction Dr. Benway and the ironically named Freeland Republic.

 Pastiche:
Owing to the novelist use of numerous signs, clues, places and identities, criticism has considered the novel as a
precious source of new and original meanings, deriving from the assembling process of apparently isolated
literary fragments which is called pastiche, probably a postmodern feature. It lends itself to a multiple range of
interpretations if one takes into account the para-textual and social elements, surrounding the enigmatic and
non-linear narrative scaffold of the novel. This novel suggests a rather interesting but, at the same time, expected
theme such as monstrosity, as a result of the numerous rapes, tortures, sexual and even cannibalistic scenes
characterizing the text.
Conclusion
Naked Lunch uses a first-person narrator with limited perspective for most sections,
although several chapters feature third-person narration. Naked Lunch contains
extremely graphic depictions of bodily functions, drug use, violence, and sexual
behaviors.  No societal taboo is too extreme to be off limits. The novel contains
references to rape, underage sex, bestiality, and cannibalism. While this content is
presented for satirical reasons, they have drawn controversy over the years since the
book's publication. Naked Lunch has been accused of containing "pornographic"
material, but the novel's content is far more likely to elicit revulsion than arousal. This is
one point of the novel's social and personal criticism.
The text also uses a number of racial and cultural terms. It uses terms such as Arab to
describe Muslims and Negro to describe black people. Less savory racial slurs are also
presented in contexts designed to reflect negatively on characters who use such
language. Other terms such as queer or queen for homosexuals or gash for women
appear in keeping with the Beat aesthetic which embraced street language and slang.
 
THANKS