Responding to Neoliberal America: A Jamesonian Reading of David Foster Wallace’s Girl with Curious Hair
الموضوعات : نشریه تخصصی زبان، فرهنگ، و ترجمه (دوفصلنامه)
Golbarg Darvishian
1
(Ph.D. Candidate of English Literature, Department of Language and English Literature, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran)
Javad Yaghoobi Derabi
2
(Assistant Professor of English Literature, Department of Language and English Literature, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran. )
Hassan Shahabi
3
(Assistant Professor of English Literature, Department of English Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran)
الکلمات المفتاحية: Alienation, History, Identity, Ideology, Power, Reification,
ملخص المقالة :
This research intends to read David Foster Wallace’s Girl with Curious Hair from a Jamesonian perspective. In this research, it is argued that the American people’s ideology has been shaped by liberalism and neoliberalism which are the main products of modernity and postmodernity and it is discussed that Wallace, as a critique of neoliberal society rejects the capitalist values that are influencing people’s lives. This research proves that liberalism and neoliberalism are imposing false identities on people to preserve their power. According to Fredric Jameson, historicizing literary texts helps the readers comprehend all layers of meanings in a text. He talks about the alienation and reification of postmodern man caused by the authorities’ use of ideology to preserve power. With ideology, the citizens are turned into consumers who have lost their identity and the postmodern man loses his true identity and faces his death. Wallace’s Girl with Curious Hair can be studied to see how Wallace shows the importance of ideology in the American neoliberal system which can help them preserve power, give people false identities, and turn them into alienated, reified people who only follow the values of a neoliberal society and forget about all the other values.
Boswell, M. (2020). Understanding David Foster Wallace. USA: South Carolina Press.
Burn, S. (2012). Conversations with David Foster Wallace. USA: The University of Mississippi.
Clare, R. (2018). The Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace. UK: Cambridge University Press.
Harvey, D. (2007). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. London: OUP.
Homer, S. and Kellner D., ed. (2004). Fredric Jameson: A Critical Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Jameson, F. (2000). Globalization and Political Strategy. New Left Review, pp. 49-68.
Jameson, F. (1988). The Ideologies of Theory, vol 1,2. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press. (‘Beyond the Cave’, IT2: 118)
Jameson, F. (1982). The Political Unconscious. New York: Cornell University Press.
Peters, Ch. and Keisling, Philip. (1985). A New Road for America. New York: Madison Books.
Roberts, A. Fredric Jameson. London: Routledge Critical Thinkers.
Wallace, D. (1993). E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction. The Review of Contemporary Fiction, pp. 151.
Wallace, D. (1989). Girl with Curious Hair. New York: Norton.
