An Analysis Of The Alienation Theme In Them

Joyce Carol Oates is a very distinguished female writer in the 20th American literary field. Her oeuvre ranges over essays, poems, plays, criticism, and several genres of fiction and involves an extensive coverage of subjects which provides wide room for her critics. Critics both at home and abroad have analyzed her works from various perspectives such as thematic studies and technical analysis:feminism, writing techniques and so on. However, few of them have touched upon the theme of alienation which is critical to her fictional writing.As a psychological realist writer, one of Oates's major fictional concerns is on the conflicts between the individual and his social environment. In her works, Oates shows her overwhelming fascination with social problems of contemporary America where his individuals often suffer extreme psychological turmoil and alienation. She relates the intense private experiences of her characters to the larger realities of American life and conveys their psychological states with unerring fidelity.Alienation is one of the most frequently encountered themes in literature over the history. Especially in the early 20th century, the modernist movement greatly changed the way that literature was perceived in western culture. Alienation as a recurrent theme in modernist novels is still influential in the early years of the postmodern period. Writers explore people's alienation from different aspects and present various pictures of spiritual wasteland.Through the help of the theory of alienation, the thesis examines the theme of alienation as reflected in them-alienation from society, from family and from themselves. This thesis analyses the causes of alienation related to many serious social problems of contemporary America, which lead to individual's alienation from society and from family. The conflicts and contradictions between individual and society, self and other cause anxiety, desperation, loneliness and alienation to people living in such an environment, which deeply reveal that modern Americans are living in a critical dilemma with a potential spiritual crisis.The first aspect of alienation is the alienation between human beings and society. Social institutions fail to exercise their due functions, seriously devoid of social and moral responsibility. Detroit as depicted in the novel is a city of turmoil whose pervasive atmosphere of violence threatens all the characters, offering people no sense of security at all. The relationship between people and society are distorted. There is no harmony between the city and human beings. City is not a proper place for people to live in. City residents do not feel being part of the city nor being accepted by the society. Instead, they feel being marginalized and live as outsiders with no sense of belonging. Because the heartless commercialism, sense of loneliness and violence prohibit the creation of community in the city, the absence of a functioning community is pervasive in the novel. The loss of community results in the sense of alienation of modern people; it not only creates a nation of strangers, but also makes man a stranger to himself.The second aspect of alienation in them is alienation among the family members, as the novel is also a family chronicle, recording the poor life of the Wendalls in the riotous Detroit slums. Various social problems estrange people and cause alienation between human beings in general and family members as well. There exists neither trust nor love among human beings, and only indifference and hostility prevail so that even the most intimate family members are turned into alienated strangers.The third aspect of alienation is man's alienation from himself. Going through alienation in the society and the family, people begin to turn to themselves for any possible spiritual support, only to find that they have lost themselves already. In the indifferent capitalist world, they try hard to seek their own identity. However, the cold reality destroys their efforts. To survive, they have to constantly transform themselves spiritually and psychologically for the sake of adapting them to the outside environment. Because of the failures on their journeys'of self-actualization, they are entrapped in a more secluded and solitude situation. Men become alienated from themselves.Through the above analysis, the living dilemma and spiritual crisis of contemporary Americans are clearly revealed. Therefore the thesis comes to the conclusion:residents in Detroit as depicted in them are generally entrapped in critical dilemma of alienation from society, from family and from themselves as well, hence we come to realize that modern Americans are facing a serious spiritual crisis.