Class Distinction In Jonathan Franzen's Freedom

Jonathan Franzen(1959—)is one of the most significant authors in the American literary scene.The Corrections(2001)catapulted his name into the mainstream consciousness,but it was Freedom that notched up awards and acclamation.Since the critical and commercial hit of 2010's Freedom,critics have hailed him as "the voice of a generation".Freedom,an ambitious work of realist fiction,recounts the events leading the Berglunds to the brink of collapse.Although abundant criticism on the novel has been produced by scholars.,the critics tend to confine themselves to the discussions of Franzen's narrative conversion.The realism leaning is undoubtedly one of Freedom's features,but its concern about class distinction is also worth noticing.Although existing research interprets the text also from the perspectives of post-feminism and space,none of them has systematically analyzed the novel from the perspective of the class struggles Franzen depicts.In the face of a contemporary emphasis on an easy plasticity,Franzen's Freedom is important in reminding readers that class distinction is inevitable.Against this background,this thesis focuses on class conflicts which penetrate throughout the novel.By resorting to the concept of "distinction" in Bourdieu's theory,this thesis analyzes the demonizing war based on tastes distinction and the paradox of miracle exceptions.By denying the passive methods of confrontations,Franzen actually proposes self-reconciliation in the family realm as a strategy of dealing with class distinction.This thesis finds the connection between the class struggles that Franzen depicts and the symbolic violence in Bourdieu's thinking.Tastes distinction is class distinction in a displaced order.The educational system perpetuates symbolic violence in modern democracies in that it obscures class boundaries and shifts the responsibility of self-making to individuals.The demonizing war based on tastes distinction appears many times in the novel.Environmental activities—the bird preserve and zero population movement—in the novel embody the spirit of restraint which comprises the good tastes of the bourgeoisie.It is utilized by Walter Berglund as a legitimate tool to stigmatize the less privileged classes.The less privileged classes encounter not only cultural embarrassment but also moral discredit.Through depicting the Berglunds'meltdown,namely the bankruptcy of their careers and marriage,the novel shows how each individual is inextricably connected with families.Instead of imagining a world constituted by personal choices,Franzen emphasizes the influence of family—the class habitus—which is the structure of the social orders.He therefore captures the central problematic of the system of tastes that depends on hierarchies of wealth.Instead of espousing a simple reconciliation,or an easy story line of resistance to social norms,Franzen envisages an alternative by retreating from a hopeless public sphere into the private world of the family where salvation is still possible.