TV Series (Sep 2017)
Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers in Textual Seriality: Trauma, Resilience... Resolution?
Abstract
This article examines the narrative strategies used in the television series adaptation of The Leftovers (HBO, 2014-2017), originally a post-apocalyptic novel that revisits the literature of the rapture. The creators of the series incorporate new literary subtexts that provide the television series with a complex hypertext which questions the meaning of the rapture, calling attention to different ways of coping with the traumatic event of October 14th. The Leftovers tends to highlight the failure of reconstructing a social pact among Mapleton inhabitants, focusing on family units that have been torn apart by the rapture.
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