In October 1905, James Joyce wrote “Araby” on an unnamed narrator and like his other stories, they are all centered in an epiphany, concerned with forms of failures that result in realizations and disappointments. The importance of the time of this publication is due to the rise of modernist movement, emanating from skepticism and discontent of capitalism, urging writers like Joyce to portray their understanding of the world and human nature. With that being said, Joyce reflects Marxist ideals through the Catholic Church’s supremacy, as well as the characters’ symbolic characterization of the social structure; by the same token, psychoanalysis of the boy’s psychological and physical transition from one place, or state of being, to another is …show more content…
Ideological state apparatus
In the words of Louis Althusser and his neo-Marxist notion of “the state”(Connors, 101) exerting power through an authoritarian mechanism, whether it is the media, school or in this case, the superstructure of the Catholic Church, shapes our statures as subjects, from social and culture structures of subjected ideology. In Araby, Joyce immediately pivots the reader’s attention to the protagonists’ freedom from the “Christian Brother’s School”. Not only does this highlight the pervasive power of religion, supporting Althusser’s suggestion of religion as a “repressive state of power” with educational functions (Althusser, 143), but also makes us envisage a lower, middle class neighborhood in which the boy dwells in; evidence of Marx’s culture of a state of dominance and subordination of specific classes. What’s more on the educational apparatus, apparent in capitalist states, of this ideology is that discipline and control taught by the church deeply
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On one hand, Joyce executes his political beliefs as an anti-English imperialist of the alienated labor force, as we see the boy ultimately buys nothing from the bazaar. This is extrapolated from the material reckoning between the buyer and seller as well as the result of failed capitalism – which Marx viewed as a catastrophe from its incapability to stabilize social and economic qualities by the lower classes. Moreover, the protagonist alienates himself from the normative, religiously induced way of thinking from euphoria for the fantasy created by the bazaar to defeat- reflective of defeated Ireland at the time. On the other hand, Joyce incorporates the boy’s desire to escape from the hegemony of Irish Catholicism. The characters like the protagonist, Mangan’s sister, are tropes of the societal tension between Irish and England, but in this context is suggestive of the incompatibility of capitalism in Joyce’s time. Because Marx believes the worker would “put his [or her] life into the [alien] object” (William, 132) he/she is producing, they are ultimately alienated, unconnected to
Extensive research was taken to write this novel, and was revealed in the offbeat telling of historical events. Instead of focusing on how capitalism developed in specific countries, Appleby told the story of how it developed over time and globally. She describes the positives and the negatives with equal tact, and makes it interesting for those who usually are not interested in these types of novels. While it may be difficult to understand the connection in some sections, the unique angle is enough to capture almost anyone’s attention. Altogether, the book clearly explains why capitalism is “A relentless revolution, yes, but not a mindless one” (Appleby
In “The Kite Runner,” Amir's journey is a powerful reminder of the lengths one will go to seek redemption. One of the ways Hosseini explores the theme of redemption is through the use of Religion. Throughout the novel, Amir struggles with his faith and his
The main character had to manage his father’s neglect while growing up. All Amir really wants is to be “looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard” (Hosseini 65), and while this conflict shapes the way that Amir grew up, readers are exposed
This is because despite the energy of labor and the being of the labor which are put into the product, that product itself doesn’t belong to the laborer nor do they receive any benefits from the product i.e., ‘the fruits of their labor’. In a sense, the laborer loses something of himself during the time spent creating this estranged object, as it doesn 't identify with it as a meaningful part of its own presence as a person, yet simply as an independent entity alienated to itself. Marx states that the “worker puts his life into the object; but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object” (29). Therefore, the more labor one puts into a product the more powerful and estranged the world of products becomes of them. This estrangement can become so acute that the bare necessities of living are taken from the laborer as the more products they produce, the less they possess.
Regret is one of the hardest feelings to stomach. The way people act on their emotions causes detriment to the events that unfold as a result of these actions. Khaled Hosseini’s, The Kite Runner, follows the journey of a friendship between two friends, Amir and Hassan, and tells of their precious friendship living in Afghanistan during the late 20th century. Hosseini makes punctual use of Marxist ideology in order to describe the class difference between the two friends and how this effectively resulted in the desolation of their friendship.
Individual or Ireland: A Literature Review for “The Dead” Long, bitter battles are fought over the meanings of great works of literature and the ambiguity of James Joyce’s “The Dead” makes it ripe for debate. “The Dead” centers on an evening in the life of Gabriel Conroy, an introspective urbanized Irish upperclassman attending his elderly aunts’ party. During the course of the evening, Gabriel has several unsettling encounters with the other partygoers, whom he deems traditional and inferior to himself, and learns of the sacrificial death of his wife’s former lover, all of which lead Gabriel to somewhat ambiguous realizations about life. Although “The Dead” is, on the surface, a simple, rather uneventful short story, a study of James Joyce’s
The main character had to manage his father’s neglect while growing up. All Amir really wants is to be “looked at, not seen, listened to, not heard” (Hosseini 65), and while this conflict shapes the way that Amir grew up, readers are exposed to the
Essentially, the worker does not control what he or she produces because the capitalists control it to ensure an increase of profit. In Alienated Labour, Marx explains that, “this relationship is at the same time the relationship to the sensuous exterior world and to natural objects as to an alien and hostile world opposed to him”(McIntosh 1997:18). He argues that the workers feels alienated form their own work because they know that they will be unable to reap the benefits (McIntosh 1997). An example of product alienation is how Z understand that he is digging tunnels to increase the production of the colony however is alienated because he does not receive any personal benefits of his work. The general stands in front of the entire colony and says, “We are the hero’s.
When man confronts himself, he also confronts other men. What is true of man’s relationship to his labour, to the product of his labour, and to himself, is also true of his relationship to other men, and to the labour and the object of the labour of other men.” (Marx 1844) We have evaluated the four types of alienation labor in relation to the worker: The estrangement of the worker from the product of his work, the estrangement of the worker from the activity of production, the worker’s estrangement from species-being or human identity and the estrangement of man to man or the estrangement from our fellow workers.
Introduction The novel as well as the short story proclaimed a literature of the oppressed that extended hope to those who have none. This can be seen in three key dimensions of the Palestinian novel. First, there is a beautification of the lost homeland of Palestine. Palestine is portrayed in literature as a paradise on earth.
“Cathleen Ni Houlihan”, a play that William Butler Yeats co-wrote with Lady Gregory, in 1902, is about Ireland’s fight for their independence. According to Nicholas Grene: “What is at issue [in Kathleen Ni Houlihan] is the political meaning which the play generated and the potential for such meaning which the text offered.” (Grene, 1999) The play is set in a cottage kitchen and centres in the 1798 Rebellion. The play: “stages two conflicting narratives of Irish peasant womanhood. Mrs. Gillane and, potentially, Delia, her son’s pretty, well-dowered bride-to-be, represent a realist, maternal order, the values of hearth and home; the Poor Old Woman, Cathleen, also dressed as a peasant, represents a contrary order of being – symbolic, nomadic, virginal, sacrificial rather than procreative (…)
The second, is alienation from the product. In Marxist time and in today’s modern world we are involved in an abundance of mass production. In a capitalist system, people are placed in a position where they are responsible in making a minor part of the goods. The goods of work belong to the capitalist and is sold for their profit, whereas the workers gain nothing. Therefore, Marx concluded that the greater effort the workers put into their job, the lesser they benefit.
Araby As one grows older, one often looks back upon a moment in his or her life as being the point in time that they finally “grew up”. Araby, by author James Joyce, follows the story of one young man on his journey to his “coming of age” moment, or the point at which he “grew up”. Having spent his childhood residing on quiet and blind North Richmond Street, he began as any other boy in his the Christian Brothers School. After developing an unrequited crush on Mangan 's sister, a girl in his neighborhood, he discovers the existence of true disappointment.
A Terrorist’s Psychological Disturbance John Updike’s Terrorist delves into the psychological depth of its protagonist Ahmad and studies the factors that disturb it. Updike confirms that “Ahmad is an ideal, … model kid,” “upright boy, full of faith and seriousness” who “we 're all trying to raise,… ,[but] he is trying to kill [all those around him]” (Interview “Holy Terror” 2006). Trying to understand why Ahmad wants to blow up New Prospect, Updike analyzes Ahmad’s psyche and clarifies for the readers the psychological elements that contribute to creating a terrorist such as the parental negligence, the lack of identity and belongingness, the hatred and anger that inhabit Ahmad’s heart, and the manipulation of his fundamental teacher Rashid and his colleague and friend Charlie—the son of the storeowner for whom Ahmad works.
In this context, the Palestinian refugee is fictionally exploited to affirm anti-Arab discourses integral to American fiction about the Middle