This thesis investigates the theme of wandering within the worlds of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, published in 1922, and Cormac McCarthy's novel Suttree, published in 1979. The first half, under the heading "Wandering I," explores the individual's role in the built environment, in society, and in nature, while the second half, with its focus on the "Wandering Eye," examines optics, vision and theories of perception. In Chapter One I draw on Benjamin's theory of flânerie and in Chapter Two on Arendt's concept of the conscious pariah to frame the experience of Suttree and Bloom as political subjects within their respective cities, bringing the two texts together in my discussion of the landscape through which each wanders in Chapter Three. In Chapter One, I examine the ways flânerie can be taken across national and cultural borders, through an investigation of Suttree, set in 1950s Knoxville. McCarthy's title character conforms to the flâneur figure in numerous ways: he is a wandering, exilic individual, existing on the urban margins, at home on the streets, both of the crowd and outside of it, able to objectively observe the city's inhabitants even as he participates in that city's affairs. I examine Suttree's ability to move across and between social classes, a capacity that situates him ideally to critique social mores, established norms, and corrupt or outmoded authoritative figures and structures. Bloom, as pariah, like Suttree as flâneur, is both individual and type; both "stranger" and "modern man." Simmel and McFarlane's theories of alienation and exile, along with Arendt's fourfold concept of the Jew as pariah""and her reappropriation of the term as a source and form of positive identity""provide the background to my analysis of Bloom as pariah. I extend my discussion in this chapter to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary (as well as positive and negative) experiences of exile, and to examine the impact exilic wandering has on forms of identity and the ways we relate, to ourselves, to each other, and to our environment. In Chapter Three I draw on William James's concept of stream of consciousness and Heraclitus's concept of flow to trace the progression of the river motif through Suttree and Ulysses, exploring parallels between the wandering landscape and the wandering mind in McCarthy and Joyce's narratives, as well as the related notion of the river itself as a wandering body. The river is a site of significance in each of McCarthy's, and Joyce's works. It is at different times a liminal threshold, a border between city and country, a national boundary, a site of death, near--"death and rebirth, and a symbol of refuge, hope and purity. This thesis is informed by a part--"for--"whole dynamic, with a specific focus, in the first half, on the wandering individual, as political subject, in relation to their society and their environment. In the second half, I explore these synecdochal relations in terms of the ways such wandering figures view and interact with the world, with a specific focus on how they see (parallax and stereoscopic vision), and the kinds of viewing they do, from the objectivity of the telescopic view, to the subjectivity of the microscopic view, and finally to the relativity of the kaleidoscopic view. In Chapter Four, I expand the scale, shifting my focus from the wandering body and landscape here on earth, to the vast landscape of the firmament (across which we witness the wandering of stars, planets, comets and other celestial bodies). In Chapter Five I invert the view, focusing on an individual's internal vacillations in response to triggers from the external environment; and in Chapter Six I explore the ways these many viewing positions coalesce in ongoing patterns of fragmentation, replication, and resolution, at ever--"increasing and decreasing orders of magnitude.
| Date of Award | 2018 |
|---|
| Original language | English |
|---|