Bahareh Nilforoshan; Bakhtiar Sadjadi; Fariba Parvizi; Farid Parvaneh
Abstract
Introduction: Reading contemporary fiction through diverse disciplines appears to be a substantial part of narrative studies in particular and literature in general providing a tenable framework of interdisciplinary discourses of knowledge to study and explore fiction. Caryl Phillips’s The Nature ...
Read More
Introduction: Reading contemporary fiction through diverse disciplines appears to be a substantial part of narrative studies in particular and literature in general providing a tenable framework of interdisciplinary discourses of knowledge to study and explore fiction. Caryl Phillips’s The Nature of Blood embraces a labyrinth of narratives, the Holocaust as its ultimate point of recollection. Phillips, by narrating the horrific memories of a camp survivor, delves into the dark memories of racism and brings it to its old days, as far as Othello’s in Venice. The present study explores this dark legacy through a relatively new approach to literature using socio-cultural anthropological concepts. In doing so, the present paper scrutinized The Nature of Blood through the concepts of territorial stigma, ghetto, and punitive containment in order to delineate the true and indisputable role of fiction in other social sciences, emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of literature and novel, in particular. Focusing on the conception of ghetto as a stigmatized territory narrated by Eva and Othello, the two major narrators in the novel, the article finds it as an available and costless strategy of punitive containment practiced through the course of history and represented in The Nature of Blood.Background of Study: Wacquant elucidates his ideas on the nexus of marginality, ethnicity, and penalty. However, tenets of territorial stigmatization and ghettoization would cover more nationalities and disciplinary boundaries. He builds his notions of ghetto on a comparison of some canonical cases and concludes that ghetto is an institutional form that would lead to territorial and social stigmatization: “the ghetto is an institutional form, a social-organizational device that employs space to fulfill two conflictive functions: economic extraction and social ostracization” (Urban Outcasts, 3). He develops the concept of territorial stigmatization according to this comparative approach to social theory and applies his findings about neighborhood taint on both sides of the Atlantic. Moreover, he has contributed to urban studies by his notion of advanced marginality. Methodology: This article is a library-based research and uses various sources both in interdisciplinary discourses and contemporary fiction. Ghetto is pictured as punitive containment strategy to push the members of periphery to territories of stigma and deprive them of their collective identity and sense of belonging. Conclusion: The present paper explores The Nature of Blood as an instance of the author’s multi-layered narration in a versatile scope of time, place and history that makes it an appropriate microcosm to apply Wacquant’s conception of territorial stigma, ghetto, and punitive containment. It is concluded that territorial stigma, along with other labels relegating the repressed to the margins of a society, is a recurrent and dynamic threat to the integrity of the underclass and the precariat making it difficult to grasp to any kind of collective action and thus, reflecting the future lives and struggles of the migrants with diverse ethno-racial and religious backgrounds, especially from the Middle East, who were trying to find refuge in Europe after the wake of ISIS. Moreover, ghetto, scrutinized by Wacquant in its modern sense, finds its roots in Renaissance Europe in Phillips’ fiction, proving the bitter fact that the ghetto is the other side of the prison aiming at the exclusionary closure of the outcasts of the society and continued almost unchanged to the modern urban metropolis. The punitive containment during the course of history proved to be a practical and priceless strategy to keep the underclass precariat and the social outcasts at bay behind the bars of the prison, sometimes embodied in the form of the ghetto and has always been reflected in literature due to its potential socio-cultural and anthropological overtones.
Mehdi Khoshkalam Pour; Bakhtiar Sadjadi; Fariba Parvizi
Abstract
Introduction: The present paper proposes that Lisa Unger’s Fragile (2010) is involved in a late capitalist social phenomenon that announces both the extinction of the authoritative Oedipal Father and the liberation of mOther and son from his reign. The Hollowers in the novel are incapable of experiencing ...
Read More
Introduction: The present paper proposes that Lisa Unger’s Fragile (2010) is involved in a late capitalist social phenomenon that announces both the extinction of the authoritative Oedipal Father and the liberation of mOther and son from his reign. The Hollowers in the novel are incapable of experiencing any real sexual relationship the lack of which heavily influences their personal and social life. The present paper reveals that even the Hollowers’ commitment of rape, incest, and even murder cannot compensate for the enjoyment of the proper sexual relationship they are innately deprived of. In Fragile, both man and woman infer an ancient rivalry over jouissance from their sexual relationship. Accordingly, Unger’s characters orchestrate various psychological schemes for optimum pleasure from their sexual relationship, while they become involved with some irreparable psychological disorders that neither supply them with their desired pleasure from sex, nor release them from the sexual traumas that permanently remain with them. Background of Study: Between Žižek and Badiou, there is no contention that the contemporary man cannot live up to the name and authority associated with the Oedipal Father, and epitomize the Big Phallus of the Symbolic Order. However, while Žižek reduces woman to an object of exchange between father and son (Žižek, Enjoy Symptoms! 75), Badiou does not consider her as a passive object-cause-of-desire; quite contrary, to Badiou, woman can freely serve and express her social and sexual identity and challenge man’s long-held symbolic superiority (Badiou, True Life 82). The sexuation theory extensively covers the sexual relationship between man and woman and discusses that proper and meaningful sexual relationship is impossible due to the fact both man and woman view it as a place to demand their jouissance. Methodology: Sexual relationship in proper sense, as the sexuation theory implies, is impossible, for man uses it to dominate woman whereas he is basically under delusions of authority (Žižek, Enjoy Symptoms! 156). The sexuation theory publicizes the decline of the Oedipal Father and the late-capitalist phenomenon of orphan bodies that the anal father of jouissance adopts in order to promote frenzied consumerism and monopolized jouissance (Felicia Cosey 6). However, the Oedipal Father’s collapse is followed by the subject’s metamorphosis into the ‘sacrificed body’ that is perplexed with inexplicable che vuoi questions regarding his symbolic value. The Oedipal Father now morbidly envies his son’s firm ties with his wife through what Badiou coins as ‘infantilization’ (Tutt 10). Žižek’s underrating insight to woman as merely “one of the Names of the Father” (Žižek, Enjoy Symptoms 169) is weighed against Badiou’s view of woman as a free agent of herself. This paper finds pertinent the sexuation theory with the psychological disorders of ‘neurosis’, ‘psychosis’, and ‘perversion’, and illustrates the subject’s crushing oscillation between the pleasure of sexual intimacy and the preservation of consciousness and symbolic integrity. Conclusion: The sexual relationship in Lisa Unger’s Fragile is a devastating experience rather than a pleasurable one; indeed, the more they try to enjoy their sexual relationship, the more dismayed they become. Fragile, in line with Žižek’s psychoanalytic hypotheses, demonstrated that authentic sexual relationship is profoundly influenced by the subject’s process of phallic castration that permanently takes him away from the Imaginary Order and the Real encompassed in; therefore, both man and woman presume the sexual relationship as a way to retrieve the lost Real. This article illustrated that in the post-capitalism era, the restrictive Freudian Oedipal Father cannot survive and exert his influence on his household; instead, as the novel of Fragile indicates, the contemporary father is eclipsed by his wife and son’s strong emotional ties that have shaped after he lost his symbolic authority.
Peyman Amanolahi Baharvand; Bakhtiar Sadjadi
Abstract
Abstract Introduction: As a prominent American novelist, James A. Michener wrote twenty-six novels and won several literary prizes, including the Pulitzers Prize for Fiction in 1948. Michener was preoccupied with the reflection of the European colonialism of North America and its detrimental environmental ...
Read More
Abstract Introduction: As a prominent American novelist, James A. Michener wrote twenty-six novels and won several literary prizes, including the Pulitzers Prize for Fiction in 1948. Michener was preoccupied with the reflection of the European colonialism of North America and its detrimental environmental and ecological consequences, including deforestation and massive slaughter of wild animals, in his novels. Likewise, he exhibits the deleterious consequences of European settlement on the natural world in Chesapeake (1978). The white explorers and colonists who settle in the New World relentlessly burn forestlands to prepare vast lands for the cultivation of tobacco that was indeed a “cash crop” in North America. Euro-American anthropologists and researchers, including Shepard Krech III, have referred to indigenous North Americans as savage and uncivilized subjects with a cultural background that has always endorsed the devastation of nature and its inhabitants. Distorting the real cause of environmental damages, Krech asserts that Native Americans deliberately burned ancient forests, fell myriads of trees, and slaughtered countless numbers of buffaloes prior to the commencement of European settlement. He contends that the depredations of indigenes had induced the depletion of natural resources. Nevertheless, an examination of several novels of the Native American Renaissance, including Chesapeake, that mirror the adverse environmental and ecological outcomes of the European colonization of the New World, indicates that these allegations debunks these allegations. The present study seeks to challenge the claims raised by certain Euro-Americans concerning the injurious interventions of Native Americans through an ecocritical exegesis of Chesapeake. It shall be indicated that the prevalence of anthropocentrism among the European settlers induces environmental catastrophes in the New World. Moreover, this research shall exhibit that the Native Americans live in harmony with the natural world in that they believe in biocentrism rather than anthropocentrism. Background Studies: Chesapeake has not been sufficiently dealt with in critical articles and books to date. Marilyn S. Severson (1996) focuses on the exploration of human tolerance that he considers an essential value in Chesapeake. She maintains that Michener is critical of various sorts of discriminations imposed on both black and white individuals in his seminal novel. Race and religion are the two significant sources of discrimination in Chesapeake. Racism is a powerful impetus instigating the white colonizers to commit genocide following the dispossession of Native Americans. African slaves are the second group of wretched individuals brutally tortured in Chesapeake. According to Severson, “the black slaves are considered a possession similar to a ship or a wagon” (100). The slightest insubordination among the miserable slaves leads to horrible forms of torture. Nonetheless, discrimination does not affect merely Native Americans and African slaves. Severson remarks that since Michener was preoccupied with the tolerance of different religious groups in most of his novels, he focuses on this issue in one of the chapters of Chesapeake. Stuart G. Leyden (1979) examines, in his article, the depiction of religious tolerance in Chesapeake. Referring to Michener as a “preachy moralistic writer,” Leyden contends that Christian morality was a significant concern for Michener. He compares Pentaquod, a fugitive Native American who abandons his hostile tribe to join a peaceful group of Native Americans, with the Quakers who are persistently persecuted by authorities in Michener’s novel. Pentaquod and the Quakers, Leyden argues, are both outcasts among their people. Ironically, these outcasts are peaceful individuals. They are coerced and beaten due to religious or political dissidence. Apart from religious tolerance, Leyden maintains, the struggle for women’s rights is also highlighted in Chesapeake. He argues that Rosalind Steed and Ruth Brinton exert themselves to end the brutal whipping of women for misconduct in that they firmly believe in human dignity and equality of men and women. Glenn Uminowicz’s article, published in a magazine title Tidewater Times (2008), compares Michener’s concern for animals in Chesapeake with the endeavors of Thornton Waldo Burgess (1874 –1965), a conservationist and an author of children’s stories, to raise the public awareness concerning the necessity of preserving non-human species. Uminowicz contends that Michener was inspired by Burgess who utilized anthropomorphism in his short stories. Similarly, he maintains, Michener uses animal characters in Chesapeake to teach his readers about the life of animals in Maryland. Hence, he argues that Michener plays the role of Burgess for adults. As Burgess wrote about a duck, named Mrs. Quack, which exerted to save her family from the guns of hunters, Michener focuses, in the eighth chapter of Chesapeake, on the perils awaiting ducks in Maryland during autumn when they arrive from Canada. According to Uminowicz, Michener portrays a family of geese headed by Onk-or to depict the complex strategies animals undertake to escape the terrible guns of white hunters. Materials and Method: The present study could be categorized as a qualitative literature-based research whose accomplishment required extensive academic and library research. Since this article is classified as a research project in the humanities, its critical argument rests upon a specific theoretical framework. Rather than statistical analysis, a particular approach to literary criticism was utilized to interpret the selected novel. Likewise, a variety of scholarly writings addressing ecocriticism, anthropocentrism and biocentrism were scheduled to be scrutinized prior to the commencement of writing the manuscript. Moreover, as a research work categorized under the field of applied research, this study sought to present a detailed survey of the sample. Hence, the critical investigation of the selected novel was carried out through the application of the critical concepts of anthropocentrism and biocentrism. As a qualitative research, the present study began with theoretical assumptions and subsequently focused on the representations of the critical concepts in the selected novel. Conclusion: The world portrayed by Michener in Chesapeake drastically undergoes adverse alterations following the onset of European settlement. The prevalence of anthropocentrism among the European settlers induces detrimental environmental consequences in the New World. Comparing and contrasting the treatment of the natural world by the Euro-Americans and Indigenous North Americans, the present study indicates that the Natives do not make any effort to damage the environment. This research reveals that contrary to the false accusations raised by Shepard Krech III and other white researchers against Native Americans, the Indigenes in Michener’s novel prove to be preoccupied by the preservation of natural resources. The benign treatment of animals by the Natives, and their agitation upon the burning of trees by Edmund and Simon, indicates that in contrast with the European immigrants they firmly believe in biocentrism.
Mohsen Khaleseh Dehghan; Bakhtiar Sadjadi
Volume 14, Issue 19 , October 2018, , Pages 119-140
Abstract
The present paper seeks to argue that consumption and media wield an unparalleled influence over contemporary American society, in a way that these drives constitute the primary means through which identity is constituted. Closely referring to Jean Baudrillard’s critical concepts, the present research ...
Read More
The present paper seeks to argue that consumption and media wield an unparalleled influence over contemporary American society, in a way that these drives constitute the primary means through which identity is constituted. Closely referring to Jean Baudrillard’s critical concepts, the present research contends that the fictional characters of Bret Easton Ellis, particularly in American Psycho, are prone to this postmodern world, where all experience via consumption has become fathomless, and traditional notions of identity have been changed. Ellis’ characters oscillate between the extreme poles of violence and ennui as they do their best to prevent their psyches from collapse amidst the surrounding turmoil caused by excessive consumption. Neither one of these alternatives results in any relief. In this type of literature, the protagonists are immersed in the contemporary world of consumption and the mass media. In fact, primary interest here is on the effects of this immersion in the world of commodities on the major characters, and their reactions in the selected novel. Accordingly, dependence on possessions by the characters of the novel in order to isolate themselves from the threatening disorder of the post-modern world is the major concern of present study of the novel.