Depression, Alienation, And Estrangement In John Banville’s The Sea

Contemporary Irish writer John Banville’s novel The Sea ostensibly features personal grief and memory, yet in effect displays depressing physical spaces, alienated individual spaces, and estranged social space in the Irish society. In first-person narration of the protagonist Max Morden, the novel runs with three intertwined lines--- the life Max lives in his old age with Miss Vavasour and Colonel Blunden in Cedars the lodging house, Max’s childhood of associating with the Graces and the complex emotional involvement with them, and the memory of his wife Anna during her final illness. Through the depiction of individual experiences, Banville points out that the negative influence of social institution, social structure and social ethos is the root cause for the alienation of individuals and the estrangement of the society.Based on Henry Lefebvre’s spatial theory and Michel Foucault’s ideas of power and space, this thesis explores the novel’s theme as alienation and estrangement on three levels, namely physical space, individual mental space and social space. In The Sea, Banville exposes major physical spaces as the sea, the seaside village, and the hospital. The sea is more of a depressing space symbolizing the narrator’s childhood trauma than a natural landscape. The seaside village is no longer the paradise for vacationers in the traditional sense but a symbol of hierarchical relations based on money. The hospital where Anna receives medical treatment is a space which symbolizes strict social discipline, repressing people’s mind and constraining their behavior. Based on the physical spaces, individuals’ mental spaces are further unfolded. Banville presents alienated individual mental spaces of various forms:Max’s being self-doubting and lost, the summer house Cedars’ renter--- the Graces’ being hedonic and distorted, Ms. Vavasour’s being guilt-ridden and estranged, and Colonel Blunden’s being mystic and philistine. The alienation of individual spaces aggravates the estrangement of the social space. In revealing the twisted and love-deprived relationships of the Morden families, the indifference and estrangement of farmers near the Cedars, and the vulgarness and morbidity of urbanites represented by Anna’s father Charlie Weiss and his business partners, an estranged social space is presented on different layers.The novel demonstrates that social institution, social structure and social ethos exert influence on individuals’ subjectivity and identity recognition, which if not dealt with well, tend to exacerbate individuals’ sense of loss and indifference. While at thesame time individuals’ mentality reflects and influences the overall social conditions.Under Banville’s pen, Ireland’s social institution limits individuals’ subjectivity; the social hierarchical structure influences individuals’ identity recognition; and the social ethos dominated by money aggravate the formation of an estranged society. John Banvill starts with constructing spaces to reflect the social reality, expressing his humanistic concern and worry about Irish individuals’ mentality and the external social conditions. This thesis reveals the dynamic role of space and probes into the humanistic implications of space in Banville’s novel, aiming at providing a new perspective for the study of The Sea.