[This week, the Think Tank tackles a seminal work of 1980's literature: the lyrics to Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer." Stay tuned next week for music theory analysis.]

Literary Theory, Mlawski
Knowing nothing about music theory and unable to come up with anything of note to say about “Living on a Prayer” as poetry, I’ve decided to complete an assignment I once had to do when I was getting my masters in English education.  It’s… the literary theory assignment!  Behold!

Living on a Prayer, the New Criticism reading: The lyrics start with the claim that this story happened “once upon a time, not so long ago,” which is our cue to read the text as a modern day fairytale.  What happens in the text itself, however, is not the stuff of fairytale at all.  “Tommy,” our dock-worker, is no knight in shining armor, though he tries to be by putting his six-string in hock.  But, like Prince Charming in the fairy stories of old, Tommy does represent Everyman, the ideal.  Likewise, “Gina” is no princess, but she is indeed a damsel in distress, the Everywoman in need of protection.  Thus, the “once upon a time” introduction to the song is meant to be a somewhat ironic reference that suggests that “Living on a Prayer” is at once a fairytale and something of a satire of one.

[This week’s edition of Overthinking Lost covers all of season one and nothing else.]

I once read that every genre of literature has, at its core, a question.  In a romance novel, for instance, the question is, “Will the protagonist find her happiness with her true love?”  It doesn’t matter that we know going into it that the answer is, and always will be, “yes.”  More important is how the question is answered.  Other genres have other overarching questions.  A mystery, at its core, will always ask, “Why did this murder occur?”  A fantasy novel will often (but not always) ask, “Will good triumph against evil?”  A children’s book will tend to ask something along the lines of, “How will this child grow up?”  These questions will not always be asked explicitly, nor will the answers always be pat and obvious.  But they are there.

Lost does not fall under any of these genres.  So, then, what genre is it?  I think we have two options.  Option one is: Lost is a postmodern ontological mystery (much like, say, Sartre’s No Exit).  Option two is: Lost is a work of science-fiction.  Or, I suppose there’s always option three: Lost is both.

So far, we have more proof that Lost is an ontological mystery.  An ontological mystery is a mystery that asks not, “Why was this person murdered?” but, “Where the hell are we?  What is this place the author set up?”  This question came up explicitly in Lost’s pilot.  Charlie said, “Guys.  Where are we?”  That is the main question of season one.  I will get to the answer, or lack thereof, to that question in a moment.

The other option, which some of you suggested in your comments on my earlier entries of this series, is that Lost is a work of science-fiction.  The strange metallic sounds mixed in with the roars coming from the island’s Monster in the season finale strongly suggests there’s sci-fi afoot.  (Yes, I’m crossing my fingers for robots.  Didn’t you read that comment I made on ShadowBanker’s zombie article?)  The major question a work of science-fiction tends to ask is, “Based on where we are now, where are we, as a species, going?”

Let’s consider the “where are we?” question first.  So, where are we?  What is the island?  Why are the characters there?  What’s the point?