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I'm an Alien in New York : How Capitalism Creates Alienation in Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer

This essay investigates how capitalism affects the characters in John Dos Passos’ novel Manhattan Transfer. It argues how capitalism in many instances leads to alienation in various ways. In order to understand the historical context of the novel and to perform this character study, the concepts of modernism, modernity, Marxism, capitalism and alienation are put forward in the theoretical framework as the foundation of the essay. The main theories used are Georg Lukács’ definition of heaviness, Ferdinand Tönnies’ discussion on community and society and Melvin Seeman’s presentation of the ways in which the term alienation has been used and explained over the years.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-49256
Date January 2016
CreatorsThorén, Anna
PublisherLinnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för språk (SPR)
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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