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BGSU_Dissertations_0187_Lipani.pdf (12.2 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

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Jerzy Kosinski: A Study of His Novels

Lipani, David J.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555931250435506

Abstract Details

1973, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, English.
The Introduction examined relevant aspects of Kosinski's life in an attempt to establish a relationship between his past experiences and the major themes of his fiction. It was discovered that the author's exposure to diverse forms of authoritarian control constituted the source of his bias against any external force operating counter to the self's freedom. The four novels comprising the Kosinski canon were analyzed in detail, especially as they were directed toward the quest for a viable self in a contemporary world threatening to submerge the individual consciousness. Each protagonist was shown struggling with some variant of social repression: the boy in The Painted Bird faced hostile peasants who, swayed by Nazist ideology, viewed him as a menace to their own safety; the narrator in Steps fled the socialist bloc because there he had no control of his destiny, nor was his being acknowledged as an entity separate from the masses; Chance, in Being There, was subjected to a more insidious totalitarianism--the television medium, whose false representation of reality effectively kneads the individual into an easily manipulated, mindless soul; and Jonathan Whalen, in The Devil Tree, fell victim to the Protestant Ethic, the demands of which left him unable to see himself as something other than an image occasioned by wealth and status. It was concluded that Kosinski's theme throughout was the elusiveness of self and the self's efforts to achieve an identity amidst collective societies whose influences upon behavior made such identification difficult, if not impossible. It was determined, furthermore, that the author's attention to characters desiring autonomy of self spoke to the need to expand and define the self, to make the self more aware of its essence and its potential.
Richard Carpenter (Advisor)
Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lipani, D. J. (1973). Jerzy Kosinski: A Study of His Novels [Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555931250435506

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lipani, David. Jerzy Kosinski: A Study of His Novels. 1973. Bowling Green State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555931250435506.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lipani, David. "Jerzy Kosinski: A Study of His Novels." Doctoral dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 1973. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1555931250435506

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1555931250435506
534
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Release 3.2.12