John Dos Passos' "Manhattan Transit Station" was published in 1925. During this historical period, the United States established the dominance of monopoly capitalism and the completion of the Second Industrial Revolution led to a substantial increase in social productivity. The change in the mode of production has brought about a rich material life, as well as the unique spiritual predicament of this era. People's worship of "things" has reached a new height: "In the process of capitalist development, the materialized structure is more and more deeply, doomed, and decisively immersed in human consciousness" (Lukacs, 156). The abundance of modern material society stimulates people's extraordinary desire for wealth and status, but the single homogeneity, passivity and rationalization process of material society also obliterates human subjectivity, tempting people to fall into spirituality willingly predicament. Passos keenly observed the alienation of his time, put it together into writing, and wrote his own unique ideas. "Manhattan Transit" focuses on urban life in the United States, telling the daily life of people from all walks of life in Manhattan, New York from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The material society is full of machinery, rigidity and fragmentation, and the subject consciousness of human beings is gradually dying out under the influence of the materialized structure of capitalism.
At present, most of the research on "Manhattan Transit" in the academic circles at home and abroad focuses on the exploration of Passos' superb spatial narrative skills and urban themes. "It does not win by plot conception and character design, its charm comes more from the spatialization of narrative, especially the juxtaposition of time and space in the 'camera eye' to show the urban style of New York, and realize the novel through nesting, circles, puzzles and other techniques Maximizing temporal space” (Liu Ying 2017). It is true that it is important to discuss Passos' innovative writing skills, but the study of his creative intentions cannot be ignored. As a former left-wing writer, Passos's early writings were more inclined to "in the secular world where people think that money is omnipotent, the concern is the fate of groups and individuals" (Berkovich). In this novel, there are eloquent lawyers, vanity-loving actresses, wealthy young people who are wasting their time, and even low-level workers who are hungry. The spiritual "wilderness" of the upper class and the impoverishment of the lower class prove without exception that the consciousness of materialization has penetrated into every aspect of people's daily life. Lukacs strongly criticized this characteristic of capitalism in his book History and Class Consciousness, revealing the double blow of objectification on the human body and mind; The failure and despair of the people remind people that the capitalist material society is by no means an ideal country for human beings to achieve happiness. Therefore, this paper criticizes the demise effect of material society on modern people's subject consciousness from three dimensions: single homogeneity, survival passivity and rationalization process. Only by staying away from being surrounded by "things" and refusing to become slaves of "things" can people truly awaken their own subjective consciousness and survive better in modern life.
2. The single homogeneity of material society
The single homogeneity of the material society is reflected in the fact that people's dreams tend to be a kind of alienated unity. The fragmented life of modern society and the material needs of alienation fix the single goal of human survival in the pursuit of money, so people will fall into an unconscious self-alienation and gradually lose their subjectivity in society. "The modern 'submissive man' feels that his life is meaningless, that he is bored with what he does, but not free to do what he sees fit to do, and to think what he can think." (Fromm , 127) In the novel, Jimmy Huff came from a wealthy family and received a good education. But he "obediently" accepted the "false" subject consciousness of the bourgeoisie, confining man's ultimate pursuit to material life. In the alienated capitalist society, his dreams were forced to be homogenized and he lost his true self.
Jimmy was only brought to live in the United States when he was a child. This free country in the eyes of others left a good impression in his young heart. His patriotism made him want to "kiss this land" for a time. As an adult, Jimmy realized that the real American society is far from freedom, but more like a materialistic money empire. At the same time, he himself lost the freedom to pursue his dreams and was forced to be reduced to a puppet manipulated by money. After his mother's death, he has been under the "meticulous" care of his legal guardian, Uncle Jeff. The "good man" used persuasion to forcefully control Jimmy's career choices, and also fed him the money-worshiping values he agreed with, that money is the only measure of success. In this alienated city, “the development of human consciousness and the relationship between human beings are determined and governed by the incoherent laws of commodities” (165). Jimmy wanted to be a reporter, but at that time he was only silent and obedient, and eventually he mechanically walked into the future that others had planned for him, "As soon as I was fired, Uncle Jeff helped me find a new job. ” (146). As a result, Jimmy gradually lost his self-will under the mechanized arrangement, "I couldn't be sure what I wanted, so I just turned around in circles, helpless and depressed." (146) Even more depressed, when Jimmy finally got rid of Jay After becoming a newspaper reporter, he found that journalism was just a tool controlled by money, and integrity and freedom were nowhere to be found.
After a period of time, Jimmy was so impressed with the superficial snobbery of journalism that he eventually had to resign from the newspaper, feeling like a "fly on the top of a chaotic city." The bustling metropolises of the twentieth century were always rewarded with money. As a bait, the illusion of "gold everywhere" is created, thereby eliminating the individual dreams in people's hearts and homogenizing everyone's dreams into the pursuit of money and material things. Ultimately, Jimmy realized the truth: New York, a city built on copious amounts of champagne and dollars, was by no means ideal and kingly land. In the days without work, Jimmy wandered the streets and drank heavily, but this drunken life gave him the courage to escape from New York. At the end of the novel, he chooses to take a ride away from this alienated city, but when asked where he wants to go, he only vaguely answers "I don't know, maybe quite a distance."
Jimmy is what Lukács calls a "disillusioned romantic lyric hero: the self-satisfaction of subjectivity is its most desperate justification, and it is more of any struggle for the realization of the mind in the external world--already seen a priori. Abandonment of a hopeless purpose and only a degraded struggle” (166). In a modern society where money is used to measure everything, Jimmy completely lost his cognition, yearning and pursuit of his own life. He eventually grew into a completely different look from his dream: from a wealthy youth to a society facing cruelty The young people at the bottom who are unable to change the reality but succumb and flee. Passos used Jimmy's image to reveal the loneliness and despair that American youth felt in American society at the beginning of the century: people's subjectivity and choice in material society would be generally erased by alienated cities .
3. Survival Passivity of Material Society
In a capitalist industrial society with a highly developed social division of labor, people are lost in the material life of abundance and involuntarily step into the trap of "consumerism". For example, people's behavior and psychological changes are affected and manipulated by things, and their desires are gradually expanding invisible. In the end, people lose their subjectivity and can only rely on objects to express and identify themselves; objects also lose their use value in the past, and more of a symbolic value, becoming status, identity, fame, etc. with human nature the presence of representations. Human desires are gradually delineated from natural needs within the framework of capitalist fetishism. In "History and Class Consciousness", Lukacs mentioned: "The problem of commodity fetishism is a peculiar problem of our age, that is, modern capitalism." (144) In this age, people generally fell into spiritual predicament. That's how it ended with Len Satcher.
The New York metropolis of the twentieth century was splendid, but nothing special. Numb people and mechanical cities interact with each other, and people are passively carried forward by matter. Times Square in New York is a dream factory in people's hearts. Thousands of dazzling electronic billboards continue to attract people from all over the world to come here to find "gold". Ellen is also one of them. She is deeply attracted by the flowers, applause and dazzling lights of the audience. Whenever she looks at the dazzling Broadway, she always has an indescribable sense of satisfaction and happiness in her heart. Allen looked at the goddess "Dang Delin" who was dressed in green and riding a white horse, and fantasized that he could also become a star, but he didn't know that "Dang Delin" was just a product created by advertising and the market. symbol.
Lefebvre pointed out in "Daily Life in the Modern World" that consumers project their emotions onto symbolic objects, and self-identification becomes symbolic identification, which eventually forms the identity of consumer ideology. That is to say, Ellen thought that what she was looking forward to was a beautiful dream, but in fact, she projected her dream on an illusory symbol, and she desperately climbed up just to become the same illusory symbol. To achieve this "illusory" goal, Ellen greedily pursues her vision of success, treating marriage as a commodity with exchange value. Her first husband, John Oglethorpe, was her first springboard to success. In the eyes of others, such a marriage can only be judged by "Beauty and the Beast" (112), but the grumpy "Beast" Oglethorpe was able to propel Allen from obscure chorus to an audience of thousands stage. Her success came more quickly than Carrie's sister, "the girl could even marry a trolley if it was in her favor" (129), Ellen had turned herself into an emotionless commodity in pursuit of her dream, and marriage had only The exchange value she needs. "Marriage is what it is, isn't it," she thought. (168) In the ensuing exchange of interests, Allen became more and more mechanically numb. After her relationship with Oglethorpe broke down, she slept with wealthy playboy Stein Emory and flirted with elite lawyer George Baldwin, but didn't want to be possessed by anyone. Judging from several emotional experiences of Allen in the novel, it seems that she is manipulating these persistent suitors, but in fact, it is interests and desires that control Allen's mechanical performance when dealing with suitors. In this passive existence, Allen's behavior "objectified against his personality into a persistent and insurmountable everyday reality." (Lukacs, 152) Under the influence of this everyday reality, Allen finally completely lost his own subjectivity, and survived rigidly and passively in the alienated city.
The encounter with lawyer George Baldwin at the end of the novel is Ellen's last emotional experience, and she must continue to deal with this man for wealth, fame, and status. But she is not as lively and free as she was when she first arrived, Ellen plays the role that others need like a clockwork doll, and is as rigid and rigid as a machine at all times: "Her ankles are crossed, and the body under the clothes is rigid. Like a porcelain statue, everything around it seems to be hardening and glazed, and the air floating with blue smoke is turning into glass." (308) Allen's ending also did not escape material society. Brought to her fate, as an isolated individual, she had to need this twisted alienation of relationships to maintain a decent life. But behind the decency, there is a spiritual predicament like a black hole, swallowing the feelings and vitality of this young girl. Ellen, who has compromised with her desires, cannot escape this alienated city like Jimmy, but can only integrate with it completely. She is destined to survive passively here.
4. The process of rationalization of material society The process of
rationalization is a unique feature of modern capitalism, and it is also the primary basis for the development of modern enterprises. Laborers and labor organizations must follow the premise of reasonable technology to carry out the production of "things". Under the influence of a specific social production mode, the way of life of modern people also changes accordingly. Erich Fromm argues that rationalization is a mechanism by which the social unconscious is created, and it is because of rationalization that one assumes that everyone is motivated by rational and moral forces, thereby obscuring the important fact that the The real motivation that produces the behavior is the opposite of the rationalized thought. Man is acting wrong without realizing that he is acting in an unreasonable and immoral way. In the novel, lawyer George Baldwin gradually changes from an obscure little lawyer to a high-level political figure with both fame and fortune. In the process, he relies on extraordinary brains and desperate means to justify all his unethical behavior. In a life long divided between true intentions and rationalized ideas, Baldwin ended up in a mental quandary.
Baldwin in the novel lives in the bustling New York metropolis. After graduating from law school, he opened a small law firm, but no business came to his door for three months. At this time, Baldwin saw in the newspaper that milkman Goss McNeil was seriously injured by a train while at work, and he immediately thought that if he could successfully complete this case for compensation, he would usher in fame and connections double harvest. In order to completely grab the business into his own hands, he seduces Goss's wife, Nelly. However, instead of realizing that this was a wrong move, Baldwin justified the immorality. From the moment he took the initiative to come to the door, Baldwin was covering up his true motives: "There are several legal provisions involved, and I feel it is my duty to inform you." (42) When he saw that Nellie was a beautiful young girl, An immoral thought gradually rose in Baldwin's mind, but he asked Nelly in a high-sounding manner: "Can I come here regularly to report the progress of the case?" (43) So, the pure Mrs. McNeil was completely caught up in Baldwin's sweet talk In the trap, he believed the love that came out of Baldwin's mouth, and believed that only he could handle this case.
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