The concept of the abject that Julia Kristeva notes in her essay Powers of Horror focuses on that which “does not respect boundaries, positions, rules”. The in-between, the ambiguity, the composite, with particular emphasis on the fact that the abject refers to the human reaction to a threat of rupture of meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between oneself and others. William Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Angela Carter's collection of reworked fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber both exude the notion of the abject forcing the reader to question their own response. These texts focus on the abject notion of sex, which is non-consensual, violent and invites moral judgment. There is a distinct depiction of the liminal state between self and other, between life and death in both texts, particularly in the destruction of identity through the excretion and exchange of bodily fluids, this which forces the reader to feel embarrassment or disgust for the characters. The concept of addiction appears largely as an aspect of the abject, ignoring the boundaries of identity in the play with people's lives and the lack of respect for positions in society in the drug culture of the Naked Lunch. The notion of the abject is created in these two texts through carefully constructed imagery and language that forces the reader to evaluate their own moral compass and respond accordingly with a suggestion from the author through narration on how he should react. In a decade when sex was so regularly silenced that Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch could only be seen as a pornographic and invasive depiction of an act that people in the 1950s believed should remain behind closed doors. Burroughs' graphic descriptions of sexual acts... middle of paper ...... explore readers' morality inviting them to judge the author, the characters, and even themselves based on their own reactions, the vivid images and the disgusting reality introduced by the language of Carter and Burroughs. The different readership from the initial readership of these two texts undoubtedly makes The Bloody Chamber more abject because it represents what is thought to be a contemporary attitude, whereas Burroughs was a representative of beat culture which served to depict the underclass and disgust. surrounding this civilization and the way in which it was received by a conservative society. Despite the years that separate the two texts, the two authors agree on the notion of the abject illustrating what disgusts and violates the reader as well as the characters of the texts, inviting each reader to decide if he is abject through his own reactions..