Thursday, January 28, 2010

A General Introduction to Saul Bellow and His Three Novels with a Brief Review of Its Theme Concern 6

In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx makes a brilliant exposition on alienation under private ownership of means of production. What he concentrates on is alienated labor. Marx calls attention to four aspects of alienation in capitalistic society. First, man is alienated from the products of his activity or work. Man’s labor is embodied, in an object and is bought and sold. The object is appropriated, owned by someone else and stands as an “alien being” to the worker.   As a result, the more the objects produced by the worker, the stronger the hostile power is, the poorer the worker becomes. This is the alienation of object. Secondly the worker is alienated from his work since he sells his labor to others and is compelled to work for someone else. As a consequence, the worker feels like a human being only during his leisure hours. In this sense, the worker does not belong to himself but to someone else. This is also the worker’s self-alienation.

At the third level, man is alienated from his species-being, from his truly human nature. The species-character of human being is “free conscious activity” that is quite different from animals. But this unique character of human species-life is lost when man’s labor is alienated. Just as the object of labor is no longer his, so man is shorn of his free and spontaneous activity and creativity. His consciousness is now deflected from creativity and is transferred into simply a means to his individual existence. Finally, man is alienated from his fellow human beings. In an environment of alienated labor all men look upon other men as objects and not as full members of the human species. Man is estranged from the other. The four aspects exist objectively in capitalist society.
Beside the concept held by Marx, alienation also refers to a kind of subjective psychological state of man. Modern men feel that they are hostile to the outer world (nature and society), others and themselves. They exist in an absurd cruel world, surrounded, driven and teased by the great antagonistic power. They feel powerless and thus disgusted with the world. They stand as stranger, outsider or dropout. Everyone treats others as hidden competitor. This is also his attitude towards himself. He feels that his action is not generated from his own will. He is either made use of by others or driven by society.   His “self” is lost. So people always ask such questions as “who am I?” “What kind of person am I?”. This is the so-called “identity crisis”. People make self-exploration and seek for the soul, the spirit. Moreover, there is another case of alienation felt by modern men. That is, they feel they are cut into two halves all the time. This half is antagonistic to that half. The two “halves” are in an endless fight. So the modern man fails to make decisions as wall as take actions. He is alienated from his own “self”.

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