'Materialism In Douglas Coupland's Generation X'

Douglas Coupland's novel, Generation X is written in a unique and ironic way. Throughout the novel the reader is being told a story while the characters tell stories of their own. Andy, the protagonist, speaks to the audience through his narration of tales known as “bedtime stories” which are made up stories that he shares with his two acquaintances, Dag and Claire. The trio perhaps share these stories in order to refrain from revealing their “truths” to one another and alas fail to acknowledge it themselves. Nevertheless, the irony is that the reader can easily see through the facade that the characters try to create. On the other hand, readers can easily perceive their actions as deliberate and realize that more is being revealed about the …show more content…
Dag seems to be shying away from his own reality. One of the main themes the characters are faced with is Materialism vs Self Expression. Throughout the novel, Claire, Andy and Dag assert that they are trying to live a life of rebellion against the socioeconomic cultural tradition that they believe turns the lives of everyone their age superficial and ultimately leads to the downfall of the generation before them, the Baby Boomers. They want to express a sense of individuality, independence and freedom, and aspire to be more than a market of consumers, while rejecting the idea of greed, selfishness, materialism, etc that comes with the American Dream. However, there is a parallel between materialism and storytelling. Materialism has become a corruption of a societal idea-the American Dream for the larger community much like how storytelling has become a corruption of a personal truth. By eventually making themselves accountable to and for themselves, as truth tellers and non-materialists, Andy and Claire discover and embody the value of true, multi-leveled self-expression. Dag, as discussed above, does not quite