Analysis Of Reification From The Perspective Of "The Three Orders"

David Mitchell(1969-),one of the best contemporary writers in Britain,has finished six full-length novels which are not only popular among ordinary readers but also attractive for so many critics and scholars.However,by now most of related researches both in China and abroad are devoted to Mitchell's first three novels known as Ghostwritten,Number9dream and Cloud Atlas,but for his last three novels which are The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,Black Swan Green and The Bone Clock,it is hard to find relevant studies and especially in China there is none.It is worthwhile to make up for the blank of relevant researches for it not only contributes to tracing the new development of David Mitchell's writing but also offers a valuable opportunity for listening to the writer 's clinical observations for our time of globalization which is threatened by growing crisis and learning his wise advice.Based on Lukacs's theory of reification and Lacan's theory of the imaginary order,the symbolic order and the real order,this paper intends to expound that the core plot of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,Black Swan Green and The Bone Clock is breaking through the encirclement of Capitalist landscape of reification.Focusing respectively on narratives of the past,the present age and the apocalyptic future,the three novels generate in concert an epic drama of life of human beings who are ruled by capitalist modernity in which their destinies in the past,the present and the future are interconnected intensely.In this paper,the capitalist landscape of reification is reckoned a sort of symbolic order who has been constructed at expense of ignorance of the real order.People in novels who make efforts in gaining integral comprehension of the world they live must come to terms with the fact that the view of the entire world is always blocked by the mirage on the landscape of reification.This paper is composed of three parts:the introduction,the main body and the conclusion.The introduction offers the essential information of the writer and his works,the research method,definition of concepts,thesis statement and review of related researches.The main body of this paper comprises three chapters and each chapter which consists of three parts focuses on one of the three novels.The first chapter which studies The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet first delineates the features of life on Dejima which is typical of landscape of reification.Then,the second part of this chapter demonstrates that Orito's fascination for Jacob has a great deal with the fact that the former is fantasy of the real order for the latter.Finally,the third part explains that the Orientalist space Mitchell creates symbolizes the entire world once blocked from Jacob by capitalist landscape and it helps Jacob comprehend infinity of "the thousands autumns" and richness of life and gets rid of the confinement of capitalist social ideal.The second chapter which studies Black Swan Green first analyzes the symbolic order(patriarchy in family,bullying in campus and nationalist propaganda)for Jason Taylor and shows the predicament rendered to Jason by phenomena of reification.The second part of this chapter indicates that the"Hungman"(nickname for Jason's stammering),anxiety over time and crisis of family are symptoms of the real order in episodes of Jason's adolescence.The third part proves that only if Jason has seen through various ideological illusions in his own life can he become mature and sensible.The third chapter which studies The Bone Clock first demonstrates that inequality in process of globalization splits the world into different isolated spaces,and the pervasive aloofness in modern life is reflected by the fact that people take other people's adversity as a sort of "scenery".The second part of this chapter proves that the war between the "Horologists" and the "Anchorites" stands for the contemporary class-narrative which is always repressed by the post-modernist ideology.The third part indicates that it is the real order of capitalist world which has been always suffering from exploitation and suppression who brings down the civilization of global capitalism,and the heroine Holly Sykes who is aware of the revenge of the real order and proves her selflessness and universal love in the face of the disaster embodies the merits needed by our time.The last part is the conclusion which concludes the paper.