This essay will analyze a selection of characters from Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times. Characterizations will be analyzed by using a Marxist theoretical framework, e.g., characters’ relations to Marxist concepts such as class struggle, alienation, and stratification will be studied. The purpose of this essay is to use Marxist concepts in order to understand Dickens’ satire and critique of capitalism. This is done by applying a theory criticizing capitalism, namely Marxist theory, to some of the novel’s characters and analyzing these characters according to their relations to the main features of Marxist theory. A few characters are selected for analysis, to distinguish characteristics or traits that satirize society. Moreover, the essay will investigate whether the author alludes to Marxist concepts when satirizing contemporary society. The characters portrayed in the novel are all exposed to a society characterized by hardship, inequality, and class struggle. These concepts are all features of a society that Marxism critiques. Accordingly, the thesis is that Marxist concepts are implicit in the text and do play a role in Dickens’ satirizing of his contemporary, capitalist, industrialized society, despitenot being mentioned explicitly.

Uppsatsen undersöker arbetets roll i Willy Kyrklunds roman Solange (1951), med utgångspunkt i Paul Lafargues arbetskritiska verk Le droit á la paresse (Rätten till lättja) och Karl Marx teori om det alienerade arbetet. Uppsatsens frågeställningar rör romanfigurernas ekonomiska förutsättningar, romanens skildringar av arbete och fritid, samt arbetets påverkan på huvudpersonerna Solange och Hugo. Tidigare forskning tenderar att behandla Solange som en idéroman som diskuterar en existentiell frågeställning om människans frihet, där de två huvudpersonerna representerar var sin princip och ställningstagande. Denna uppsats syftar till att vidga diskussionen och visa på den samhälleliga kontext som i lika hög grad bestämmer romanfigurernas livsvillkor. Undersökningens resultat visar att huvudpersonernas materiella tillgångar i hög grad påverkar deras tillvaro och möjligheter att styra sina liv, samt att arbetet har en tydligt nedbrytande och alienerande effekt som tar sig uttryck på olika sätt hos de båda romanfigurerna.

Denna studie genomfördes med syfte att undersöka förhållande mellan Marx alienationsteori och Karaseks krav, kontroll och stödmodell kopplat till introduktionsprocess hos nyanställd personal i kommunal verksamhet. Då en stor andel av jordens arbetande befolkning inte trivs med sina arbeten, vilket i sin tur kan leda till en så kallad ”mental utcheckning” finns ett intresse att studera och förstå vilka mekanismer kan ligga bakom denna misstrivsel. Upplevelse av introduktion har betydelse för personalens vilja att stanna kvar på arbetsplatsen, därför kan förståelse för negativa känslor hos nyanställd personal vara till hjälp när en ny medarbetare är på väg in i organisationen. Alienationsteorin utgjorde teoretiska utgångspunkt i denna kvalitativa studie med induktiv ansats och undersökningen genomfördes på en mindre kommun i mellersta Sverige med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. För att studera hur alienation kunde uttryckas och förstås undersöktes 13 medarbetares introduktionstid från deras första kontakt med arbetsgivaren och under den närmast efterföljande tiden. Informanternas svar analyserades därefter utifrån krav-kontroll-stödmodellen, att det krävs en fungerande balans mellan utmaningar, egna förmågor och relevant stöd. Studien visade att denna balans påverkade nyanställdas känsla av kontroll och trivsel på den nya arbetsplatsen, och väl genomförd introduktionsprocess kunde motverka upplevelse av alienation och förfrämligande. På motsatt sätt, utan stöd från handledare, med bristfällig återkoppling från chef och otydliga rutiner på arbetsplatsen tog det längre tid att komma i arbetet och bemästra sin situation. Detta i sin tur förstärkte känsla av otrygghet och att inte räcka till, med upplevd stress och alienering som följd.

Two long-standing and erroneous claims have plagued Marxism for the past century. First, Marx held no static view of human-nature. Second, Marx's theory of alienation was the naive view of a young Marx, which was jettisoned in his wiser adult years. Both views are demonstrable false. Moreover, the validity of his theory of human nature, and alienation, are contingent upon the acceptance of each other. One cannot fully comprehend his view of alienation without understanding his view of human nature, and vice versa. Upon demonstrating Marx's theory of human nature, and defending it as a crucial bedrock for the theory of alienation, mainstream rejections of each will be considered, and critiqued. The constant misunderstanding of Marx's theory of human nature comes in his unique theory of essence. He is an essentialist, with a fluid conception of man's essence. One's historical essence is an ensemble of socio-historical reflections, dialectically interplaying off a historically transcending essentialism.

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[pt] Esta tese parte da ideia de que a percepção de desenvolvimento, a colonização do mundo da vida e a instrumentalização dos sujeitos na modernidade estão associadas às formas de perceber a espacialidade pelas filosofias, pelas ciências (neo)positivistas e por toda uma variedade de correntes de pensamento constituídas na modernidade. Acredita-se, aqui, que todas essas concepções de espaço praticam um epistemicídio do espaço, pois, ao ignorar intencionalmente a práxis no espaço social, interferem diretamente na gênese da concepção de espaço como ausente de contradições. Nesse sentido, busca-se a análise da genealogia de uma epistemologia política em Geografia a partir da incorporação da metafilosofia, através da teoria da alienação, no pensamento geográfico. A teoria da alienação exerce um papel central na reconstrução da noção de espaço no processo de renovação epistemológica em Geografia, desencadeado a partir da geografia crítica de viés marxista – uma vez que instaura um movimento de ruptura ontológica e epistemológica no pensamento geográfico – e esse movimento, balizado na atualização da filosofia da práxis (metafilosofia), apresenta repercussões prático-teóricas para além da Geografia, uma vez que nos permite deslocar o olhar do objeto de estudo dessa disciplina para o entendimento das espacialidades da reprodução das relações sociais de produção. / [en] This thesis starts from the idea that the perception of development, the colonization of the world of life and the instrumentalization of the subjects in modernity are associated with ways of perceive spatiality by philosophies, the (neo) positivist sciences and for a whole variety currents of thought constituted in modernity. It is believed here that all these conceptions of space practice an epistemicide of space, because, by intentionally ignoring praxis in the social space, directly interfere in the genesis of the conception of space as absent of contradictions. In this sense, is sought the analysis of the genealogy of a political epistemology in Geography from the incorporation of metaphilosophy, through the theory of alienation, in geographical thinking. The theory of alienation plays a role in reconstruction of the notion of space in the process of epistemological renew in geography, triggered from the critical geography of Marxist bias – once it establishes an ontological and epistemological rupture movement in geographical thinking - and this movement marked in updating philosophy of praxis (mataphilosophy) has repercussions practical-theoretical beyond geography since it allows us to shift the look at the object of study of this discipline for the understanding of spatialities of the reproduction of social relations of production.

This thesis, consisting of four chapters, explores female alienation and subjectivity as described by post-war French women writers. The first chapter will focus on critical and theoretical approaches to female alienation. Through feminist and Marxist criticism, I explore the condition of women as a dominated class. The second chapter examines literary strategies such as irony, humor, parody and satire used by the authors of my corpus to undermine and question gender stereotypes which they inherited from the tradition of the French novel. The third chapter is devoted to the issue of women novelists' uses of the figure of the naive female narrator. Through their reworking of this stereotype, they perform a political act of providing agency to a figure who was traditionally deprived of all agency. The fourth chapter analyzes the question of the female body. By playing with the concept of the grotesque female body and its representation, the novelists whom I study, attempt to liberate their female narrators from the status of an object and the influence of the beauty myth. What interests me most is the potential of feminist literature to create alternative representations of women in French literature. In the novels studied here, narrators move from a position of naivety and alienation to an unexpected sense of agency and subjectivity. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines the evolution of the representation of female alienation and female identity in the postwar French novel, as well as the textual strategies of resistance used by three postwar French women novelists to subvert and rework the trope of the naive female narrator. My research project highlights the emergence of female agency in the French novel in recent decades through the examples of novels by Christiane Rochefort, Marie Redonnet and Marie Darrieussecq. The novels studied in this dissertation feature the point of view of female narrators who move beyond their initial naivety and passivity to discover unexpected forms of agency.

Dream Machine is a collection which constructs a body of contemporary mythology, grappling with themes of American paranoia, online identity formation, and bodily alienation. Stories such as "Offerings" and "Pareidolia" explore the digital commodification of the body, following characters who—through Instagram-sourced sugar daddies and nude art modeling, respectively—offer themselves up freely as subjects of voyeurism and surveillance. Other stories, such as "Network Support" and "Dream Machine" involve characters who abandon their physical forms to disappear into the internet, existing as free-floating data and radiant frequencies. "Downstream," "Grass So Green," and "Little White Crosses" engage with the stark landscape of a country starved of its spirituality, where conspiracies, hallucinations, and deathly apparitions seem to possess the same inherent logic as a blue sky. / Master of Fine Arts / Dream Machine is a short story collection.