On The Theme Of Alienation In The Island Pharisees

John Galsworthy was an English realist novelist and playwright in the early20th century. TheIsland Pharisees, a social novel with autobiographical nature, was John Galsworthy’ s firstpublished work with his own name that drew public attention. The work involves the socialproblems of the U.K., especially life, emotional and psychological problems of the so-called“Pharisees” in the upper class—the hypocritical bourgeois gentleman, madam and lady, whoconsider themselves as social elites, and the backbone and pillar of the society, but essentially theyare greedy, selfish and hypocritical. By describing thought changes of Sheldon, a special andunusual "Pharisee", the work profoundly analyzed Pharisee class, who were selfish and indifferentin emotion, numb and depressed in spirit and money-oriented in value, which was exactly the trueportrayal of upper-class society of England at that time. Sheldon was Galsworthy’ s speaker in hiswork. He ruthlessly criticized and satirized the status of England on the one hand, and on the otherhand he made reflection and repentance as well.The thesis applies alienation theory of Fromm, Marcuse and Marx and Lukacs’materialization theory to interpret alienation performances in The Island Pharisees. This kind ofalienation firstly was reflected in the spiritual world of Pharisees and mainly showed in threeaspects including love and marriage concept, moral concept and life pursuit and values. Secondly,the external social environment drives people to be alienated. The thesis analyzes three significantinfluencing aspects including the sense of property and rights in upper-class society in capitalism,sense of hierarchy and political and economic philosophy of utilitarianism. Finally, the workanalyzes the self-reflection of Sheldon as a “rebel” of pharisaic class, and further analyzes thecritical consciousness of Galsworthy’s creation through the image. This critical consciousnessdecreased gradually with the whole crisis of capitalism and the outburst of October SocialistRevolution, so that more humanistic thoughts and conciliatory attitudes were showed in his lateworks. The Island Pharisees can be described as the first sign of alienation theme novels in the20thcentury, The hero Shelton could reexamine himself in a capitalist swirl which was full of materiallusts and put money as the first priority and recognized his class from a new point of view, whichfully demonstrated John Galsworthy’ s calm thinking and strong consciousness of criticizingreality to problems in the capitalist society.