The Subjectivity In Irwin Shaw’s Novels From An Urban Culture Perspective

Irwin Shaw has made great contributions to the development of Americanliterature in his literary creation of nearly half a century, including twelve novelsdepicting American society spanning from the postwar period to the end of seventies,and the spiritual predicaments of city dwellers. He pictures a landscape hidden fromthe prosperous representation of modern society with great tact in characterization.For Shaw, the condition of individuals may serve as the criteria for the condition ofsociety. Therefore, the subjective crisis of the individual is the focus in his works.However, he did not get deserved attention in academic circles; neither did theconnection of text and city reflected in his novels. The thesis will explore the identitycrisis of the protagonists and their subjective construction in Shaw’s three novels andprobe into the literary presentation of the author about city.Firstly, the paper will focus on the self-construction of the subject of desire inTwo Weeks in Another Town. The author of the paper holds the view that there is aclose connection between spatial experience and personal identity. The protagonist’sreading of the city is transformed into a cognitive process of the self-construction.Confronted with crisis of himself and of his relationship with friends and women, hemanaged to awaken the inner self in the journey, struggling with nightmares andconstant retrospections. Andrus’s reading and experiences of Rome is in accordancewith his relationship with women, who as a character is often objectified into settingand is the most compelling of tourist sites in urban texts. The affair with the Romangirl has gone through fantasy to passion, to disillusionment, which demonstrates hisvisit to Rome as a male conquest of female terrain is doomed to be a failure.Secondly, the paper will present the self-construction of the subject of ethic inRich Man, Poor Man. The author of the paper holds that, from the little town to theurban world, children in Jordache family experience ethical dilemma and attempt toconstruct a new self in the city. With the American coming into the prosperousconsumer society, people’s values change accordingly. Fascinated by the glamour of the city, they attempt to enjoy it, while dangling and drifting away in the end.Gretchen pays heavy lost in the pursuit of her dream. Rodulph, reminiscent of theBenjamin Franklin ideal, rises to great wealth and comes close to political power, buthis success gets vanity in return. Thomas, the only anti-hero who adheres to moralstandards, ironically loses his life in doing good deeds. His death becomes a tellingprotest against modern society and alludes to the paradox of moral code in highlydeveloped civilization. Their pursuit of American dream demonstrates theimpossibility of the national myth in the urban modern world.Lastly, the paper shows the self-construction of the subject of entropy in BreadUpon the Waters. One of the complexities of the contemporary literature is in thesense of increasing entropy.“Entropy” refers to the loss of energy in a closed system.Many writers studied the wasteland in Rifkin’s industrial sense, and believed that asthe city went beyond a human scale, it would become a destructive entity. Emptinessbecomes a way of life, and citizens desperately seek something meaningful in theirlife. Shaw depicts the crises of the1970s in America. He is like the observer in thelabyrinth, displaying the chaos and confusion in modern society.“Cast thy bread uponthe waters, for thou shalt find it after many days” becomes the best irony to Hazen.The construction of the subject of desire, ethic and entropy in the three novelsreflect from different aspects their identity crisis and difficulty in the process of selfidentification. Firstly, from the view of the subject, protagonist entrapped in crisisthrough the three decades is from individual to groups, from the outdated star in the1950, to the whole family in the1960s, then to nearly everyone whether in the upperclass or just ordinary citizens in the1970s. Shaw’s aim is to prove that more peoplegot trouble in identity and difficulty in self-construction with the development ofmodern society, instead of enjoying its prosperity. Secondly, from the viewpoint of theconstruction of the subject, the predicament of the protagonists goes from desire, toethic, then to entropy. This increasingly progressing tendency extending frompsychological mechanism to social norm then to social value, and from family bond tosocial, political and cultural realm, reveals the correspondingly difficult process inconstruction of the subject. Finally, from the result of self-construction, the subject who experienced crisis of desire was endowed some hope in the releasing ofsuppression and discovery of talent in young generation. The subject who experiencedcrisis in ethic though realized American dream to some degree, only find meaninglessin life. While subject who experienced entropy has no retreat but escaping from theconfusion in death. As a realistic writer, Shaw portrays the entropic urban wasteland,and criticizes the urban civilization and the moral deterioration brought about bymodern life. With the deterioration of his health and mental state in his later years,Shaw becomes more pessimistic about the world. Those who are fascinated by itscharms and enchantment, and aspire to integrate into urban way of life, however,eventually have to escape from, and protest against the city. Confronted with thecollapse of moral orientation, individuals struggle among the chaos and confusions.The more attempts they make, the more they find it intangible and inscrutable.The paper employs basic concepts in urban studies as for the thematic concern ofthe subjective construction, while theoretical analysis is associated with close reading.With the aim to investigate the influence of urban development on the existence ofhuman beings, the paper contributes to a better understanding about Shaw’s criticalworldview about city life who observes city comprehensively. Shaw meditates on citydwellers’ physical and spiritual crises, while inquiring into the relationship betweenhuman civilization and city.The paper is conducive to the revelation of the city’s blight on human body andsubjectivity through an inquiry about identity crises of the protagonists, the root causeabout its emergence, and their subjective construction process. What’s more, as thefirst dissertation at home and abroad that takes Irwin Shaw as the object (author) ofresearch, hopefully it the will broaden the vision to the Shaw studies at home andabroad, and push forward the interest on his works.