“There is no right life in the wrong one”: The Dialectic of Drink and Abstinence in John Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer and USA
Journal
Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory
ISSN
0004-1610
ISSN-Digital
1558-9595
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2021-11
Author(s)
Abstract (De)
The pervasiveness of alcohol in John Dos Passos’s major works, Manhattan Transfer and USA, has been widely noticed. Yet abstinence, the opposite, is just as conspicuous. The article explores the dialectical implications of drink vs. abstinence, which—together with considerations of the cultural history and contemporaneous political issues connected with alcohol—reveal that drink plays an intricate role in Dos Passos’s socio-political critique. While drink symbolizes human life with all its complexities and contradictions, its opposite, abstinence, exemplifies the inhumaneness of a reduced world view that prioritizes the instrumental logic of capitalism and demands unquestioning subjugation to the given conditions.
Language
English
Keywords
John Dos Passos
Manhattan Transfer
USA Trilogy
Drink and Abstinence
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press
Volume
77
Number
3
Start page
55
End page
79
Pages
25
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
263048
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
SQ_JDP_Dialectic of Drink_pre-print version for Alexandria_160721.pdf
Size
1.07 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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