Narrating Burnout in Miniature: Neoliberal Fatigue and Emotional Exhaustion in Contemporary Flash Fiction

Abstract

In this paper, I consider emotional exhaustion and burnout in the present-day flash fiction, specifically The Sand and the Sea, Unfinished Houses, and All Good Things Have to End Sometime by Michelle Ross, Ani King, and Nicholas LeRouge, respectively. Despite the fact that the phenomenon of burnout is highly researched in psychology, in health-related literature, and in long form literature, its reflection in the short literary forms has not been investigated extensively. The immediacy and intensity of relational exhaustion is expressed through the compression of narrative and the focalization selectivity of flash fiction. The study legitimizes narrative strategies, imagery, character psychology, and structure using a qualitative, text based close reading approach. The discussion is based on the critique of neoliberal subjectivity by Byung Chul Han and the idea of cruel optimism offered by Lauren Berlant to situate burnout as an experience that is relational, affective, and produced structurally in the modern world.