LE3 .A278 2010

2010

Wyile, Herb

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

English

English & Theatre Studies

During the economic turbulence of the Depression, many authors began to focus on economic issues in order to promote a radical opposition to the capitalist establishment. Through an examination of a selection of short stories that were published in Canadian literary magazines during the Depression, this thesis examines the complex relationship between literature and ideology. By examining these texts from a socialist perspective, this thesis determines the role of literature in developing class consciousness and promoting social reform. This thesis discusses three spheres of political engagement of capitalist society in this fiction: the representation of the workplace, the representation of the infiltration of ideology into the consciousness of the working class, and the representation of the bourgeoisie. By examining these three strata of capitalist society this thesis interrogates the infiltration of capitalist ideology into individual consciousness. While many of the characters are imprisoned within capitalist institutions, these stories compel readers to recognize this imprisonment as a construction of ideology and thus challenge the ideological strictures at work in their own lives.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:155