X

This thesis considers four novels written by Douglas Coupland: Generation X (1991), Shampoo Planet (1992), Microserfs (1995), and Girlfriend in a Coma (1998), and demonstrates how each of these novels provides a discursive space in which Coupland examines the members of Generation X: those born between 1965 and 1980. Frederic Jameson's theories about postmodernism, which he equates with the concept of late capitalism, offer a theoretical lens through which this demographic can be interpreted because Coupland's characters struggle to find meaning and sincerity in a realm where advertising and consumerism are omnipresent and nearly all aspects of life are commodified. The ultimate consequence of the alienation and apathy that result from such rampant materialism is the emergence of an idiom that privileges irony. For Coupland, the prevalence of this irony is the most problematic aspect of postmodern society. Consequently, in portraying how the members of Generation X cope with late capitalism and its concomitant irony, Coupland's first four novels function as a trajectory that demonstrate how he and his characters grapple with and eventually repudiate it.