The Representation Of Depressing Spaces And Communal Predicaments In Bowen's Early Novels

Elizabeth Bowen?1899–1973?is an Anglo-Irish writer,a modern novelist and a master of short stories among her contemporary writers of the 20^th century.With 10novels,13 collections of short stories,as well as much nonfiction?the critiques,plays,biographies etc.?,she enriches the modern literature with her rich Anglo-Irish experience and artistic writing.Bowen presents the predicaments of trivial experiences of Anglo-Irish community,modern city dwellers in metropolis,and modern upper-middle class people during wartime years in her works.With a psychological insight,she demonstrates people's living condition and concerns about their alienated sense of loss,decline,dislocation and isolation in relation to a modern wartime history in her works.The shifting nature of her own life makes her representation of space and predicaments diverse and vital.This dissertation is to build a correlation between the spatial elements and communal predicaments of characters in the early novels of Bowen.The dissertation aims to explore modern predicaments of different communities in relation to the spatial presentation and metaphorization in Elizabeth Bowen three early novels:The Last September?1929?,To the North?1932?and The Death of the Heart?1938?by employing modern spatial theories of Cultural Geography,urban space theories and studies of the house in aid of this research.It argues that,different dimensions of spaces in these texts:the isolation and deterioration of the colonial landscape,mobility and stillness in the disorienting urban space,the segmentation and negotiation of the alienated domestic space are the metaphorical representations of different communal predicaments of the characters;Bowen makes use of multi-dimensional depressing spaces in her characterization,to present her themes of predicaments as isolation,decline,dislocation and alienation of her Anglo-Irish Ascendancy,modern City dwellers in metropolitan cities and upper-middle class people in London families,and thereafter to express her humanistic compassion feelings towards modern people during wartime years.The dissertation consists of three main chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion part.The first chapter focuses on the decline of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy by examining a desolated colonial landscape in The Last September.The study introduces a method of cultural geography which involves history,identity and nationalism in interpreting the Anglo-Irish territorial identity and postcoloniality of the Irish colonial landscape.This argument is justified from the following two dimensions of the desolated colonial landscape:firstly,the isolation of Anglo-Irish landscape is a metaphorical representation of the cultural estrangements of the Anglo-Irish community.It is a metaphorical representation of their identical ambivalence,a class classification from the local Irish people during the Irish War of Independence;secondly,the deterioration of colonial landscape represented by the burning down of the big houses and the fall of the deserted mills is symptom of the colonial power on the verge of decline.This part of the dissertation builds a fundamental relationship between the Anglo-Irish predicaments and the colonial landscape representation,which enforces a visual quality of Bowen's works and arouses a sympathetic feeling more than a postcolonial blame towards the Anglo-Irish.The second chapter comes to investigate the predicaments of dislocation of interwar city dwellers and the representation of a disorienting urban space in To the North.The study involves John Urry's theories of mobility,Georg Simmel's ideas about Metropolis and Michel Foucault's heterotopia standpoints to justify the disorientation nature of urban space in mobility and stillness,and thereafter to explore the fragmentation,rootlessness and stagnation of modern metropolitan life.Firstly,supported by modern means of transport and communication,and driven by a philosophy of living in other places,modern life in metropolitan cities is mobile and fluid,noisy and uncertain.The city dwellers can settle their bodies in some houses but finds nowhere to settle their souls,and therefore they endeavor to travel to other spaces as heterotopias in search of their spiritual home.Secondly,in whatever forms of travel,the characters remain in stillness in two ways:the circular move pattern of their traveling course and emotional stillness,which catalyze their self-dissolution,with their final self-destruction in extreme.This part of analysis sets urban space in Bowen's novels in motion and provides a dynamic,fluid and connected point of view to look at metropolitan life during that time.The final chapter examines modern upper-middle class people's domestic alienation and segmentation of domestic space as its spatial representation in The Death of the Heart.Lefebvre's theories about contradictory space and Bachelard's house theories are used to probe into the deep structure of homes,to present the fragmentation and exclusion of conflicted domestic space and to explore modern people's predicaments of disconnection,indifference,and inability to negotiate.Firstly,the house is full of contradictory elements as coldness and warmth,quietness and noise,darkness and brightness etc.,to set obstacles and refusals for the adolescents to get connection with families.Secondly,attempts of crossing the borders of theses segmented cells for negotiation through invasion of privacy and dreaming or fantasies are proved to be failures;the stagnated and atrophied family life,the marital dilemma is always the living state of the adults.The death of the heart is an incurable disease spreading in the prewar years London.The whole interpretation of this chapter makes a panoramic observation and a deconstruction of the domestic space of the London house and probes into the fabric of the domestic structure,which helps to touch the deep heart of modern upper-middle class people and thus to criticize the alienated state of modern family.The conclusion part makes a summary of modern predicaments of different communities and the spatial representation in Bowen's early novels.The whole study explores the historical,cultural,social,identical and ethical predicaments of the declined Anglo-Irish Ascendancy,the dislocated and rootless city dweller and the alienated upper-middle class families.Perspectives of space move from the vast Ireland to London city,from a static space to a mobile one,and from an outer layer of space to the interior,which are active,dynamic and alive.The themes of loss,isolation,decline,dislocation,and alienation are displayed through a metaphorical representation of a desolated colonial landscape,the disorienting urban space and a segmented domestic space.The study builds a fundamental correlation between predicament interpretation and dimensions of textual space and justifies that the depressing spaces are the metaphorical representations of communal predicaments in Bowen's early novels.It's a pity Bowen provides no way out for her characters trapped in predicaments and they are sentenced to life imprisonment without hopes of a better future.And it's also a pity the study only covers some aspects of Bowen's space dimensions in three of her early novels and there must be more spatial values in her works.To end the study with“the death of the heart”is rather ruthless but it is hopeful to disenchant modern people against materials and call for the peace of the world.