THE REPRESENTATION OF THE POST-INDUSTRIAL AND LATE CAPITALIST SOCIETY IN MURIEL SPARK’S NOT TO DISTURB
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Abstract
Muriel Spark’s novel Not to Disturb (1971) is a postmodern novel which can be characterized by Spark’s use of pastiche, intertextuality, and temporal distortion. Spark’s metafictional novel also offers a portrayal of a depthless society with a critique of postmodern culture and late capitalism in which the commodification, aestheticization and the screenification of everyday life which has been transformed into a capitalist commodity and consumer goods can be clearly observed. The society in the postmodern age is described as a “service society”, or “information society” or “knowledge society”. Daniel Bell prefers to define this society as the “postindustrial society” (1996: 424) in which “telecommunications and computers are strategic for the exchange of information and knowledge” (1996: 427).This paper sets out to discuss how Muriel Spark reflects the contemporary media landscape with the media and communicative technologies in a post-industrial society with great emphasis on the commercialization and commodification of knowledge and information, which play a crucial role not only in creating and maintaining the hyperreal but also in re/shaping social relations and processes, as discussed by the critics including Jean Baudrillard and Daniel Bell in his work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.
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Abstract
Muriel Spark’s novel Not to Disturb (1971) is a postmodern novel which can be characterized by Spark’s use of pastiche, intertextuality, and temporal distortion. Spark’s metafictional novel also offers a portrayal of a depthless society with a critique of postmodern culture and late capitalism in which the commodification, aestheticization and the screenification of everyday life which has been transformed into a capitalist commodity and consumer goods can be clearly observed. The society in the postmodern age is described as a “service society”, or “information society” or “knowledge society”. Daniel Bell prefers to define this society as the “postindustrial society” (1996: 424) in which “telecommunications and computers are strategic for the exchange of information and knowledge” (1996: 427).This paper sets out to discuss how Muriel Spark reflects the contemporary media landscape with the media and communicative technologies in a post-industrial society with great emphasis on the commercialization and commodification of knowledge and information, which play a crucial role not only in creating and maintaining the hyperreal but also in re/shaping social relations and processes, as discussed by the critics including Jean Baudrillard and Daniel Bell in his work The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.