A Comparative Study Of Dwelling Narrowness And The Great Gatsby From The Perspective Of Alienation Theory

Dwelling Narrowness, written by the female oversea Chinese writer Liu Liu, is a popular novel about ordinary people's struggles in metropolis whereas The Great Gatsby, masterpiece of the celebrated American modernist writer F. Scott. Fitzgerald, is regarded as one of the enduring classes in American, even world literary history. Despite the fact that these two novels are not comparable in terms of literary status and significance, they reveal the same theme-alienation of human beings. Therefore, on the basis of close reading of the texts of these two novels, it is advisable to analyze them from the perspective of alienation theory with the research method of parallel study. After comparing how the theme of alienation is embodied in these two works, we can deepen our understanding of these two novels.Until now there have been an immense number of academic research findings written and published on The Great Gatsby from diverse perspectives; Since Dwelling Narrowness was adapted to hit TV series, it has drawn attention of a considerable number of researchers, who discuss and analyze the themes and writing techniques of Dwelling Narrowness from the perspectives of feminist theories, film and television communication studies, ethics, etc respectively. However, there has been no research done about the parallel study of these two novels from the perspective of alienation. This thesis conducts parallel study of these two novel mainly based on the alienation theory of Herbert Marcuse, one of the representatives of Western Marxists. It discusses the manifestation of the theme of alienation in the two novels and arrives at conclusions that will shed light on our understanding of the two novels.The introductory part is the combination of the brief introductions of The Great Gatsby and Dwelling Narrowness, literature review and reasons for the selection of this research subject. Chapter one to chapter three focus on the analysis and interpretation of these two novels with Marcuse's alienation theory:chapter one probes into man's alienation in society in the social background of abundant material wealth; chapter two explores the alienation of interpersonal relationships reflected in these two literary works, including alienation of romantic love, alienation of kinship and alienation of other interpersonal relationships; chapter three takes for example two groups of characters of great resemblance, Song Siming and Gatsby, and Su Chun and George Wilson, to analyze how individuals are alienated from themselves in these two novels. The last part is the conclusion of this thesis:as an inevitable phenomenon in the development history of human beings, alienation bears severe negative consequences.