Dissolving Critiques: Capitalism and Space-time in the American Novel, 1888 - 1996
Loading...
Authors
MacFarlane, Jeremy
Date
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
American Literature , Chronotope , Realism , Naturalism , Utopian Romance , Critical Utopia , Capitalism
Alternative Title
Abstract
Dissolving Critiques examines the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century American
novel’s critical engagement with the conditions of life under capitalism. Reading works of
realism, naturalism, and utopian fiction through M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of the literary
chronotope, I argue that the novels under consideration render the capitalist production of
space legible as a social injustice antithetical to the ideals of freedom and human flourishing
and represent capitalism’s transcendence as an imperative of reason. However, I also contend
that these critiques risk dissolving, as the texts confront and inevitably fail to manage the
seemingly irresolvable problems inherent in their own progressive desires. In choosing
“dissolve” as a key term, I mean to highlight the term’s potential visual, “scenic” qualities, for
like a film dissolve, the dissolving critique seems to offer one scene of possible alternative that
then dissolves back into the original scene, as though unable to hold. In this sense, the
dissolving critique exposes the mechanisms of narrative failure. But although such dissolution
inevitably disappoints any progressive desires of a reader/critic such as myself, I also argue that
even when the critical image dissolves, a lingering sense of possible alternatives to capitalism
remains—like afterimages in a scene.
Description
Citation
Publisher
License
Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
CC0 1.0 Universal
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
CC0 1.0 Universal