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.