The Monster in the Jungle: Lost and the 21st Century American Gothic

Laura Dickinson considers Lost as a 21st century reemergence of the  American gothic, which derived from the British gothic by  adapting its sense of mystery, foreboding, and menace to the lush wilderness of the frontier instead of the ruins of a castle or manor house. The gothic elements of the island present a physical manifestation of the psychic/psychological disarray of the characters’ lives.  And, importantly, as was the case for the 19th century anxieties about the future, Lost could very well reflect the disquiet experienced by many Americans today in the face of concerns about swiftly changing technology, a war that has no end in sight, and a potentially disastrous climate change, where polar bears may start to inhabit tropical islands.

    

"I think I've just been to the future": A Structural Analysis of The Constant

An analysis of the Season 4.05 episode reveals the internal structure of its dual narrative, and suggests larger parallels to Lost the series.

    

Lost: Poststructural Metanarrative or Postmodern Bildungsroman?

Despite its narrative, psychological and philosophical complexity, and widespread popularity both within and beyond the television medium, there has yet to be a sustained dialogue on the theoretical aspects of Lost. Michelle Lang’s paper provides a framework for such a discussion, one that encompasses interdisciplinarity while focusing on a theme that is of particular relevance: the tension between the foregrounding of the structural aspects of the show and the maintenance of the ‘fourth wall’ within the story itself – the island as a self-contained thematic narrative within the larger contemporary sea of intellectual context, as it were.

    

“So much for fate”: Free Will and Narrative Closure in Lost

Amy Bauer looks at the debate between free will and determinism in Lost, as crystallized by repeated iconic events at odds with the forward movement of plot and character development. Each time the characters encounter the numbers or push the button they enact the traumatic collision between fate and free will in its literal fullness. In season 3 the ethical dimension of this becomes explicit when Desmond sees flashes of a future that include Charlie’s untimely death.  Yet when Charlie finally dies it is not because he has succumbed to fate, but because he has embraced it.  His “spiritual” rebirth into full full subjectivity suggests that only when the remaining characters accept the apparent contingency of the plane crash as destiny, will Lost resolve its founding trauma and achieve emotional, as well as narrative, closure.

    

Finding Lost, getting lost

Neil Shyminsky considers Lost as a "trope of a trope," with an often self-conscious relationship to its precursors in high and low culture.  The producers of Lost encourage audience interaction with the text, even if it leads to a conflation of actor and character (in the case of Jorge Garcia's Hurley and Terry O'Quinn's Locke).  Shyminsky evokes that Harold Bloom's theory of  “poetic misprision” captures the viewer's complex misreading of Lost, a process that favors active participation over truth.

    

The Art of World-making: Lost and Time Travel

Stephen Hawking biographer Kristine Larsen summarizes canon and fan references to time travel before the epochal season 3 episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes," as a prelude to a thorough review of the scientific literature on time travel.  Larsen discusses as well the paradoxes and restrictions on free will implied by time travel with reference to Desmond's philosophical alter ego. Her final speculations connect the hatch implosion, "Flashes," electromagnetic energy and various narrative anomolies in Lost, with reference  to both the consistent and alternate history approaches to time travel.

    

The (Many) Meanings of Eko’s Jesus Stick

An analysis of the writings and references on Eko's Jesus Stick

    

Lost In Hypertext: Intertextuality in the Television Show Lost

Cari Vaughn takes us on an intertextual tour of literary and  in seasons 1-3, revealing Lost as the ultimate hypertext, allowing the viewer, via associated reading, fan-made websites, and extratextual references, to construct his or her own Lost experience.

    

The Split/Join Theory of Lost

J. M. Berger proposes that Lost is intended to be a microcosm or allegory of the universal creation story.  He follows Lost’s story of existence from creation to collapse using the tools of this archetypical myth.

    

The Bad Twin: Clues or Diversions?

Dorothy Distefano reviews the Lost tie-in book Bad Twin, cataloguing its wealth of intertextual allusions and characters that intersect with both the Lost ARG and the television series.