The Body Transgressed in Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke (2001)

Abstract

This paper tackles the issue of limits in Chuck Palahniuk 's Choke (2001). The narrative is at the image of this controversial American writer and mirrors his work as a whole. The paper aims at exploring the trespassing and even the annihilation of boundaries both at the thematic and linguistic levels. The cornerstone notion of transgression opens the path to a rewriting of the paradigm between signifiers and signified and unveils the problematics of the body linked to the redefined vision of choking and to a deviant sexuality. The body itself is remolded into a land of conquest. The reader is left to wonder where Palahniuk's quest for transgression will lead him, if the crossing of limits is precisely limitless and if the body is an enduring cornucopia of possible experiences.