Modernist fiction and alienation: representing social isolation and incompleteness of human needs in Miss Brill and Life and Death in the South Side Pavilion

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the ideology of alienation in modernist fiction as embedded in social isolation and incompleteness of human needs in Mansfield’s Miss Brill and Carey’s Life and Death in the South Side Pavilion. Although, Mansfield and Carey belong to two eras; modern and postmodern but they present the concept of social alienation and incompleteness of basic human needs in similar ways. Their character sketches of Miss Brill and Shepherd 3rd class link alienation with the lack of love and belongingness, on one hand, while self-esteem and challenges of capitalist, metropolis and industrialist attitudes on the other hand. Therefore, this paper explores that how both Miss Brill and Shepherd 3rd class reflect the life of the people entangled in solitude, alienation, separation, and affected by globalization and industrialization especially urbanization of the early and mid of the 20th century.