Alienation in Paul Bowles’s The Spider’s House (1954)

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Date

2019

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou

Abstract

The present dissertation attempts to study the issue of alienation in Paul Bowles’s The Spider’s House (1954). Our aim is to make a psychological study of the novel focusing mainly on the feeling of the characters that is for our best knowledge; no work has ventured to make a study. In doing so, we have followed the IMRAD method, and we have put light on Melvin Seeman’s theory On the Meaning of Alienation (1959). The focus is mainly on his six variants of alienation that any alienated subject may experience: Powerlessness, Normlessness, Meaninglessness, Self-Estrangement, Social Isolation and Cultural Estrangement. Bowles presents his characters struggling with the surrounding conditions from different sides including the cultural, social, political and even the religious ones. He also reveals the impact of these interrelated factors on their psychological state. By approaching Seeman’s theoretical concepts to Paul Bowles novel, we find that though Bowles’s characters endure the same state of being which alienation, this feeling is takes various forms in the same way Melvin Seeman categorizes his six variants of alienation on his mentioned work.

Description

30cm ; 52p.

Keywords

Alienation, Powerlessness, Normlessness, Meaninglessness, Self-Estrangement, Social Isolation, Cultural Estrangement.

Citation

Littérature and Civilisation.