This study discusses Melvin Seeman's 1959 theory of alienation within a postmodern,
post-structuralist and systems theory context. Seeman's five aspects of
alienation, namely powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, social isolation,
and self-estrangement are re-evaluated while taking into account Von Bertalanffy's
General Systems Theory and interpretations thereof, Even-Zohar's Polysystem
Theory, post-modernism, and structuralist and post-structuralist perspectives. More
recent contributions to alienation research are discussed, particularly where
sociological and theoretical changes have forced a re-evaluation of his original
conception. Felix Geyer (1996), Arthur G. Neal and Sara F. Collas (2000), and
Devorah Kalekin-Fishman (1998) provide the crux of the discussion on the reevaluation
of Seeman's theory. It is argued, in following these researchers, that a
post-modernist and systems theory approach favours a reduction of Seeman's five
aspects to four by omitting self-estrangement, since the self is argued to be
relationally constituted (by e.g. Vorster (2003), Von Bertalanffy (1969), and Wilden
(1981)) and therefore self-estrangement is already contained within the other four
aspects.
The re-evaluated remaining four aspects of Seeman's theory of alienation are
thus applied to the chosen four novels belonging to contemporary British Fiction: Ian
McEwan's The Child in Time, Martin Amis's London Fields, Irvine Welsh's
Trainspotting and Pat Barker's Regeneration. It is argued that Seeman's theory of
alienation is applicable to contemporary British fiction, and thus how his theory
manifests in the chosen texts is analysed. Each of the chosen novels is
contextualised, bearing in mind the oeuvre of each author, the socio-historical
system, and the contemporary British literary system. A short discussion of
contemporary Britain is provided to situate the texts within the cultural and political
milieu of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This is done in order to
provide the reader with essential background information where it aids the
interpretation of the texts, since all four texts engage with the socio-historical milieu in which they were created. Barker's Regeneration is however a historical novel set
in the First World War, so wherever necessary, the context of the novel in the early
twentieth century is sketched.
The proven hypothesis of this thesis is that Seeman's sociological theory of
alienation can be applied to literary texts, since the chosen novels do manifest the
same characteristics that he identified within the field of sociology. It is shown how
each author and each text foregrounds some aspects and backgrounds others, and
how particularly powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, and social-isolation
manifests in each text.
McEwan's The Child in Time highlights social isolation, in particular with the
dissolution of the heterosexual dyad after the couple's child is abducted, and shows
how meaningless manifests when different genders attach different meanings to
actions.
Amis's London Fields highlights normlessness through the character of Keith
Talent in particular, and obliterates meaning by making the characters' world a
television-controlled simulacra, and adding the motif of darts to indicate how
superficial culture has become.
Welsh's Trainspotting emphasises social isolation and normlessness in
depicting the marginal subculture of drug-users in Leith, Edinburgh, whose
relationships are as superficial and void of morality as in London Fields.
Barker's Regeneration illustrates powerlessness in particular, as it depicts
soldiers returning from the trenches of the First World War who suffer from war
neurosis as they are stripped of their decision-making rights. Rivers's theory of war
neurosis argues that it is powerlessness that leads to war neurosis, and he links
psychological symptoms to what is seen amongst the female population during
peacetime, suggesting that it is powerlessness which leads to psychological
breakdowns in males and females.
Alienation, in one way or another, thus is a central aspect to the main actions
and imagery employed in the chosen novels. Discussing these texts from this theoretical frame of reference contributes to the understanding of some of the
seminal works of contemporary British fiction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-10122009-105625 |
| Date | 12 October 2009 |
| Creators | Senekal, Burgert Adriaan |
| Contributors | Ms MMG Lovisa |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-10122009-105625/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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