Generation X, by Douglas Coupland, is a 1991 novel that focuses on the relationships, hopes, and fears of three adults who represent the generation born in the decades of the 1960s and 70s. Generation X captures the mood and sentiment of a particular moment in time with its anxieties of nuclear apocalypse and doomed yuppie existence. It is also full of terminology and cultural references particular to its time. Yet, the novel’s strong themes dealing with community, fear of the future, and individuality fighting for space in a homogenous, consumer driven society bridge the generations. These themes help Coupland’s novel overcome a set of obstacles created by the generational gap in time and technology and allow the novel retain a certain relevancy
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This is where the youth of each generation comes to a realization that life is not going to go as planned. Educated young people enter a world that does not match their expectations and struggle to come to terms with career paths that are less fulfilling and more soul sucking than they anticipated. Andy, Dag, and Claire may all leave their jobs on the basis of principle, but Coupland presents these young people in this same moment of dissatisfaction with life, career, and self. Claire reflects on the personal cost of her job “I don’t think it’s making me a better person, and the garment business is so jammed with dishonesty” (Coupland 36). Likewise, Dag leaves his job feeling “tainted” by the process of marketing and thinking it “had, in some way, taught me to not really like myself” (Coupland 27). Even in the current employment environment, Generation X offers commentary on the cost of life choices and the anxiety between responsibility and loss of self that the working world often presents to young people. Perhaps, as Dag says, the “reason we all go to work in the morning is because we’re terrified of what would happen if we stopped” (Coupland
This is where the youth of each generation comes to a realization that life is not going to go as planned. Educated young people enter a world that does not match their expectations and struggle to come to terms with career paths that are less fulfilling and more soul sucking than they anticipated. Andy, Dag, and Claire may all leave their jobs on the basis of principle, but Coupland presents these young people in this same moment of dissatisfaction with life, career, and self. Claire reflects on the personal cost of her job “I don’t think it’s making me a better person, and the garment business is so jammed with dishonesty” (Coupland 36). Likewise, Dag leaves his job feeling “tainted” by the process of marketing and thinking it “had, in some way, taught me to not really like myself” (Coupland 27). Even in the current employment environment, Generation X offers commentary on the cost of life choices and the anxiety between responsibility and loss of self that the working world often presents to young people. Perhaps, as Dag says, the “reason we all go to work in the morning is because we’re terrified of what would happen if we stopped” (Coupland