This study of the biblical Book of Amos from Marxist and Freudian perspectives demonstrates that the critical approaches so designated complement one another well enough to be adapted and employed constructively in the study of literature and literary production. From the Marxist perspective, the method employed assumes that the literary Amos the text embodies (AmosL) has been derived from an incarnate original (AmosI) reshaped in the process of literary production to serve certain sociopolitcal interests. Following Marxs thesis that humans must be comprehended materially in the ensemble of the social relations, the social location of AmosI is theorized according to the claim that he is not a prophet but a shepherd or, as Norman Gottwald states it sociologically, a transhumant pastoral nomad. Louis Althussers concept of the idealizing function of ideology is used to argue that Amos the prophet as opposed to Amos the shepherd is a literary production of the scribes who compiled the Bible. Amos remains, however, a profound literature of alienation manifesting the high degree of hegemony that the emerging monarchical ruling class in Israel had already achieved by Amoss time.<p>
From the Freudian or psychoanalytic perspective, the text exemplifies a consciousness suffering the traumatic effects of an earthquakeeffects reflected in the texts imagery, intensity of voice, incoherence, anxiety, threat of exile, and non-representability. Frank Kermodes treatment of the mythic extends the concept of the compulsion to repeat characteristic of trauma to suggest that Amos is regressively fixated upon the myth of a tribal, premonarchical Israel as a
sort of golden age along the lines developed by Raymond Williams in The Country and The City. Georges Batailles concept of sacred violence in its turn underscores the potential of Amos itself
to fuel fantasies and acts of violence and raises disturbing questions about the ongoing effects of
the sacred canonization of violent literature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:usask.ca:etd-03142010-184003 |
| Date | 24 March 2010 |
| Creators | Cowsill, Jay Arthur |
| Contributors | Matheson, Terry, Jobling, David, Runions, Erin, Clark, Hilary, Cooley, Ron |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | University of Saskatchewan Library |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-03142010-184003/ |
| 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 of Saskatchewan 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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