Subversion,Alienation And Reconstruction:On Human And Thing Relationship In Homer And Langley

their subjectivity.The writing of things implies Doctorow’s reflection and rational examination of the status of human beings who have long claimed to be subjects.Then,Langley’s hoards are endowed with epochal significance,connecting major events in American social development in the 20th century.The writing of technical articles reveals Doctorow’s doubts about the welfare and progress that technological development and the change of the mode of media can bring to human beings during transformational period of America.Lastly,a large number of material details in the novel,as a testimony to reveal the historical truth,have become the key to subverting the traditional relationship between human and thing.The black shutters from closing,opening to forever closing shows the sadness and disillusionment of urban fringe groups hidden under the banner of American justice and progress,and reflects Doctorow’s query and criticism on the propaganda of mainstream ideology in a specific historical context.The second chapter argues how the dynamic changes of space embodied in the ontological things such as Central Park,the house,and garbage hoarded in the house,help to reproduce the changes in consumption and the lives of urbanites in the United States in the 20th century under the influence of modernization and commercialization,and how Doctorow operates the huge gap between the ontological things and their sensual features to shape the conflict and alienation of human and thing relationship.Specifically,as a spiritual oasis carrying the dreams and hopes of urbanites,Central Park is gradually sinking under the encirclement of urban concrete forest,and its trajectory of change reflects the decline of traditional buildings and the rise of consumer-oriented buildings under the impact of urbanization;the writing of garbage in the house suggests that the tyranny of things leads to the loss of human subjectivity,making them objects of servitude to things,reflecting the deterioration of the ecological environment and the compression of individual living space as a result of consumption-oriented social changes;and the transformation of the Collyers’house from a four-story mansion to a "house of garbage" shows the fact that things can make people appear spiritually disordered and lost through their dark power,revealing the impact and suppression of the invasion of commercialization on modern people’s spiritual space.The third chapter traces the sociality of things to analyze how things insinuate or symbolize the social status of people with different identities and races in American society and then influence their actions,arguing that things play a crucial role in the process of shaping the characters’ identity and reconstructing human and thing relationship.The writing of things hoarded and used by the Collyers and their clothing changes from suits and hats to rags reflect that commodities participate in and determine the redefinition of social class through their symbolic function,showing the influence of commodity economic development on the materialization of class distinctions.Besides,the writing of things associated with various immigrant groups vividly illustrates the different efforts made by them to resolve their identity crisis and redeem their marginalized fate.Doctorow’s portrayal of marginal people of immigrant groups has become an important model for the pursuit and destruction of the American dream in American literature,suggesting that it is even more difficult for these immigrants to realize the American dream under the collision of heterogeneous cultures in the period of social transformation in America.Lastly,from the inanimate objects to the pioneers and prophets of the times,the Collyers realize the power of things and use the social attribute of things to get rid of their objectified identity.The hoarding of newspapers not only liberates things from the cage of pragmatism but also realizes redemption of things and the spirit of self."Collyer’s eternally current dateless newspaper" is the longing for freedom,the yearning for ending chaos,and the pursuit of the ultimate truth of things.In this sense,the binary opposition between thing and human is eliminated,and a new human and thing relationship is constructed.By analyzing the causes and essence of the Collyers’ obsessive-hoarding disorder in the novel and the cultural memory rooted behind it,this thesis reveals the significant role of things in Homer and Langley in participating in the spiritual and cultural construction,especially its subversion,alienation and reconstruction of the relationship between thing and human.Doctorow directs our attention to the spiritual alienation and survival plight of marginalized groups through the writing of things,restores the traumatic memory of the suppressed party,and gives the marginalized people and the hoarded things the right to speak and equal status.The novel shows the imprisonment and trauma brought about by modernization,as well as the influence and oppression of consumption-oriented social changes on individual survival,reflecting the internal coupling between things of the age and the fate of the characters.Things play an essential role in the process of human civilization.They can participate in the action as practitioners and influence people through their thingness.Therefore,only by subverting anthropocentrism,dispelling the binary opposition between thing and human,and dialectically looking at the role of things in human society can we better coexist harmoniously with things and build mutual benefits.Homer and Langley is not only a new interpretation of the status and power of things but also has enlightening significance for reexamining human and thing relationship.