Values in life and literature : a comparative reading of the depiction of disintegration, insecurity and uncertainty in selected novels by Thomas Mann, William Faulkner and Thomas Pynchon

Abstract

The reading of selected literary texts in this thesis traces the changes from a divinely ordered world of stability (Thomas Mann's Bud<lenbrooks) to surroundings characterized by insecurity (William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury) to an unstable environment giving rise to largely futile attempts at finding answers to seemingly illogical questions (Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49). As a product of the accelerated speed of technological progression and the information revolution in the twentieth century, man is more often than not incapable of adjusting to changed circumstances in a seemingly hostile environment. Indeed, instability and unpredictability are external factors determining the sense of insecurity and uncertainty characterising the 'world' depicted in the literary texts under consideration. For this reason judicious use will be made of philosophical and psychoanalytical concepts, based, amongst others, on Nietzschean and Freudian theories, to explain the disintegration of families, the anguish experienced by individuals or, indeed, the shifting identities informing the portrayal of character in selected literary texts.