Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

Separation from Society

by Niclas Norby

During our paper, we will raise the question to if the individual person will have a more meaningful and fulfilled life if separated from society, state and religion, and if so, then how. This will be done by analyzing several American works of literature, primarily Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854), but with much focus on Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl (1955) and snippets of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer (1934) as well. We will heavily include the work Society and its Discontents (1930) by Sigmund Freud in regards to theory within the dimension “subjectivity and learning,” along with Zygmunt Bauman’s take on and break with said theory in his book Postmodernity and its Discontents (1997). Furthermore, an interview with Bauman from 2009 will be included, so the paper will have a more present and nuanced answer to his thesis. The ideas these theorists present will then help us analyze the aforementioned American works of literature. More so, we will be using the dimension “philosophy and science” to help us analyze and study the meaning of not only these works, but also to understand the time and society they spawned from, and what they were trying to repel. Additionally, the works will be held up against each other in a comparative analysis through the dimension “text and sign.” Besides these works, several articles will be used to underline and support some of our points as the paper reaches a conclusion. Amongst these are Our Ecological Boredom (2015) by George Monbiot and Why Does Being Lonely Make You Ill? (2013) by Deborah Cohen. In addition to these, the book Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding will be a discussion point for us, as its theme break with several of the ideas we will be working with during our study. Eventually in our work, we will reach the conclusion that one cannot completely feel that he/she has a meaningful and fulfilled life when separated from society, state and religion, as it has both pros and cons. Advisors/Committee Members: Guldberg, Kasper (advisor).