Publicação
Spinning the city wheels: how space and time mold the urban experience
| Resumo: | This dissertation explores how the manipulation of time, empathy, and historical events resonate in Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (2009). We focus on the novel's ability to weave critical interpretations of the war with dialectical perspectives of New York City. Mainly, we understand how the characters actualize their coping mechanisms in the novel’s aesthetics. Borrowing concepts of history and time from David Harvey (1990), Walter Benjamin (1969), and Paul Ricoeur (2004), we attempt to understand the author’s connections between form and time and how they complexify historical tensions. The historical context of the wars plays an important part in the amalgamation of form and time. The novel plays with images of the 9/11 and the changing perception of it. The past sheds light on the present as we trace parallels to America’s erasure of marginalized people and racial tensions in urban systems. Much like a living organism, the city is inherently connected to its inhabitants. This ecosystem will form and be defined by the structures of social life. Every chapter shifts its style to reflect the tensions and highlight the internal contradictions. In our close analysis of the novel, the connections between urban spaces and the characters become stronger—as do their relations with historical processes. Revolving around the city, the novel also focuses on the potential for empathetic relationships that are only possible in urban structures. Prospects of redemption are only made possible through community and connection. Divided into three parts, the dissertation attempts to show us how the novel functions as a postmodern revision of US history. First, we touch on the effects of a particular image within the novel, Vic DeLuca’s photograph. Depicting Philippe Petit’s unauthorized crossing of the Twin Towers in 1974, its relationship with the text highlights the importance of images for narrative construction. Secondly, we delve into the two female narrators’ experiences of time. Intrinsically connected with urban space, this part analyzes the structures of the text and the city. Finally, we concern ourselves with the ramifications of power within the characters’ narratives. Comparing two radically different experiences of the city, we envision how the systems of power can affect life, art, and family. Overviewing the effect of systematic oppression and the images employed in the novel, we attempt to understand how the novel intertwined history in its empathetic process. |
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| Autores principais: | Mendes, Isabela de Souza |
| Ano: | 2023 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | This dissertation explores how the manipulation of time, empathy, and historical events resonate in Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin (2009). We focus on the novel's ability to weave critical interpretations of the war with dialectical perspectives of New York City. Mainly, we understand how the characters actualize their coping mechanisms in the novel’s aesthetics. Borrowing concepts of history and time from David Harvey (1990), Walter Benjamin (1969), and Paul Ricoeur (2004), we attempt to understand the author’s connections between form and time and how they complexify historical tensions. The historical context of the wars plays an important part in the amalgamation of form and time. The novel plays with images of the 9/11 and the changing perception of it. The past sheds light on the present as we trace parallels to America’s erasure of marginalized people and racial tensions in urban systems. Much like a living organism, the city is inherently connected to its inhabitants. This ecosystem will form and be defined by the structures of social life. Every chapter shifts its style to reflect the tensions and highlight the internal contradictions. In our close analysis of the novel, the connections between urban spaces and the characters become stronger—as do their relations with historical processes. Revolving around the city, the novel also focuses on the potential for empathetic relationships that are only possible in urban structures. Prospects of redemption are only made possible through community and connection. Divided into three parts, the dissertation attempts to show us how the novel functions as a postmodern revision of US history. First, we touch on the effects of a particular image within the novel, Vic DeLuca’s photograph. Depicting Philippe Petit’s unauthorized crossing of the Twin Towers in 1974, its relationship with the text highlights the importance of images for narrative construction. Secondly, we delve into the two female narrators’ experiences of time. Intrinsically connected with urban space, this part analyzes the structures of the text and the city. Finally, we concern ourselves with the ramifications of power within the characters’ narratives. Comparing two radically different experiences of the city, we envision how the systems of power can affect life, art, and family. Overviewing the effect of systematic oppression and the images employed in the novel, we attempt to understand how the novel intertwined history in its empathetic process. |
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