Alienation In Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant

Anne Tyler is canonized as one of the most celebrated writers in contemporary American literary circle. She is famous for her domestic novels which vividly present the tensions in modern American family. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is her ninth novel, and is regarded as the turning point of her literary career. Many critics including John Updike have given acclaim towards the novel in which the love and hate relationships between Tull family members are skillfully delineated through a series of artistic techniques. Some scholars have noticed the estranged and inharmonious relationships among the family members, but few of them have linked the tension in family relationships to alienation. The present author, however, asserts that the tension is actually manifestation of alienation in interpersonal relationship, apart from which the characters also experience alienation within. Therefore, this thesis is to be devoted to the exploration into the theme of alienation in the novel.Alienation is a term of Latin origin and its meaning has developed with the times. Many scholars have defined this word from economic, political, philosophical and psychological perspectives. Erich Fromm creatively combines the quintessence of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and Marx’s theory of alienated labor to redefine "alienation". He regards it as a subjective feeling of powerlessness and estrangement, and points out that alienation pervades in every aspect of modern capitalist society. The thesis is to base its analysis on Fromm’s theory of alienation.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One gives a brief introduction to Anne Tyler and her literary creation, and a general survey of previous studies of the novel. Then it explains the concept of alienation, particularly Fromm’s theory of alienation, and the focus and structure of the thesis. Chapter Two analyzes the two kinds of alienation experienced by the characters in the novel:alienation in interpersonal relationships and self-alienation. Chapter Three discusses the factors leading to the alienation in the novel in the aspects which involve family, society and individuals. Chapter Four is devoted to the analysis of the ways alienation is artistically represented in the novel:repetitive narration, multiple internal focalization and frequent references to diaries and photos. The last chapter is Conclusion which summarizes previous discussions and restates the arguments of the thesis.The present author hopes to render a new perspective to Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant through the exploration into its theme of alienation, and highlight the social significance of Tyler’s family novels by proving that the novels truthfully represent the situation of contemporary American middle class through the apparently insignificant trifles taking place in their households.