The Image of the City and Urban Literature: A Comparative Study between James Joyce's Dubliners, Hanif Kureishi' s The Buddha of Suburbia, and Irvine Welsh's Glue

Abstract

<p>The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate that "urban literature" is defined as much by the experience of the character as by the presence of the city. My central argument is that "urban" denotes not merely the presence of the city but an attitude adopted by the individual.</p> <p>I invoke the scholarship of psychoanalyst Georg Simmel to explain how the presence of the city and urban images in a text are structured and quantified through a process of mental calculation. Contrary to Simmel, however, I argue that the process of calculation extends beyond immediate consciousness and into the very subjectivity of the individual. My analysis of calculation within the individual proceeds on three levels: socio-economic, intimate, and spiritual.</p> <p>In my first chapter, I have chosen James Joyce's <em>Dubliners</em> (1914) to establish this three-tiered model of analysis. In my second and third chapters respectively, I have chosen Hanif Kureishi's <em>The Buddha of Suburbia</em> (1990) and Irvine Welsh's <em>Glue</em> (2001) to complicate the model and explore how the calculated image of the city has developed over the twentieth century. Kureishi and Welsh place a much greater emphasis on personal subjectivity in comparison to Joyce's omniscience. The result is a less imposing and overbearing image of the city as a self-contained active entity.</p> <p>I hope that this thesis will contribute to the discourse on urban literature in two respects. First, I hope to establish a general understanding of the city's role in literature. Second, I hope to establish the calculative mind as a characteristic common to the urban experience. The misunderstood role of the city and the complexity of urban life have played a role in preventing "urban literature" from becoming a well-defmed disciplinary area.</p>