"The Political Unconscious" In The Waterworks

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is one of the most popular writers in postmodern American literature. He is famous for writing historical stories and almost all his stories are set in a certain period of American history. In his stories, he casts his imagination into the recreation of American history, vividly depicts American social life in different historical periods, and reflects American historical transformation.The Waterworks, published in 1994, is one of E. L. Doctorow’s works. The story is set in the American economic center-New York City during a time after the American Civil War. It tells a detective story about an insane doctor, Dr. Sartorius. In the shelter of local government officials, he turns the waterworks of New York City into a factory of immorality in which he uses children’s organs to treat dying old men and provides them with prolonged lives. Finally, he is brought to justice by the brave and upright middle class people.As The Waterworks is a novel bearing social and political color, I attempt to interpret this novel from a Neo-Marxist perspective in the light of Fredric Jameson’s Neo-Marxist idea embodied in his The Political Unconscious:Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. This thesis aims to reveal the degenerate human nature behind the blossomed American capitalism, to disclose Doctorow’s strong social criticism and political solicitude towards multiple existing social problems in American society. And through the discussion of the social reality that the lower-middle class and the middle class are being suppressed and the historical condition that the minorities, especially Jews, receive unequal treatments, Doctorow’s humanist concern is presented.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter, which serves as the introduction to the thesis, shortly introduces Doctorow’s literary achievement and his work The Waterworks. And it presents a detailed literature review regarding E. L. Doctorow as well as his novel The Waterworks, explicating the research gaps, questions and significance concerned.Chapter two analyzes the rapid development of American society after the American Civil War presented in the story. The metropolitan New York City is one of the most important cities and the economic center of America. It witnesses the huge transformation and the grandiose waterworks in New York City is one embodiment of such development. However, the waterworks serving as the outcome of the capitalism becomes a laboratory in which insane Dr. Sartorius conducted his ugly inhuman experiment.Chapter three retrospects the Nazi’s experiments on Jewish people in the human history and discusses the problem of social corruption under the capitalist system, which embodies Doctorow-such Jewish humanist writer’s political ideology.Chapter four maintains that the story itself serves as a textual revolt revealing and exploring the existing problems in American society. The story itself also offers its solutions to such problems, which presents the dislike of Doctorow and the lower-middle class and the middle class he represents towards capitalism, and Doctorow’s trust and expectation of the lower-middle class and the middle class.Chapter five summarizes the major points of the thesis. Through discussing the multiple social problems presented in the story and those recorded in the official authentic American history in multi angle, this thesis presents an American society under the rapid development of capitalism. This thesis aims to help readers better understand the historical development of American society, and deepen readers’ understanding of Doctorow’s works, and his political consciousness of radical humanism.