'[T]he language of self' : strategies of subjectivity in the novels of Don DeLillo

DeLillo, Don--Criticism and interpretation;Subjectivity in literature;Self in literature

Pass, Phillip ; Burnside, John ; Burnside, John

University:University of St Andrews

Department:English (School of)

关键词: DeLillo, Don--Criticism and interpretation;    Subjectivity in literature;    Self in literature;   

Others  :  https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/3148/Thefulltextofthisdocumentisnotavailable.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

来源: DR-NTU

【 摘 要 】

‘[T]he language of self’: Strategies of Subjectivity in the Novels of Don DeLillo’ explores themanner in which both self and society are constructed in the writer’s longer fiction. Dividedinto two sections, the first, entitled Dasein, examines the way in which the language of selfforms a Mobius strip comprised of two opposing yet omnipresent urges: that of connectionand isolation. Coining the term enunciation, the thesis describes the manner in which eachcharacter’s subjectivity is an historically contingent attempt at negotiating this tensionbetween isolation and connection, self and other. The second section of the thesis, entitled'das Man', then proceeds to explore the impact of this language of self within a wider socialcontext, examining the manner in which it interacts with other linguistic and quasi-linguisticbinaries – such as language, image, capital, waste, power and terror – likewisecharacterised as adopting the form of a Mobius strip. Through such a methodology, thesecond section of the thesis is thus able to explore the interaction and shared genesis ofpublic and private conceptions of subjectivity, illustrating how it is this same tensionbetween connection and isolation which governs the form that social interactions andinstitutions adopt in the novels of Don DeLillo.