Truth Problematization and Identity Formation: A Foucauldian Reading of Martin Amis's Money

Marwan Kadhim Mohammed, Wan Roselezam Wan Yahya, Hardev Kaur, Manimangai Mani

Abstract


Transgression in postmodern age marked a unique social and cultural aspect in re-forming the identity of the postmodern man. Martin Amis mirrors the identities of his characters through their transgression of the social norms, specifically, the established norms of truth of masculinity. However, this idea of truth transgression in Amis's novel Money has not been fully taken into account and there has been little discussion about it in terms of identity formation. Thus, the aim of this paper is to investigate the way in which transgression of truth affects the idea of identity formation in Amis's novel Money. Drawing on Michel Foucault's technique of problematisation, the present paper investigates the notion of transgressing the historical truth of masculinity which becomes a significant idea that the protagonist John Self manipulates to actualise himself and to pick up his own identity. The paper reveals a conclusion in which transgression of truth can be instrumental in realising the self and re-affirming subjectivity as the case is in John Self.

 

Keywords: transgression; Foucault; problematisation; Amis; money


DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2016-2202-09


Full Text:

PDF

References


Abdullah, O. M. Yahya, Wan. R. W. (2015). Credibility at Stake: Seeking the Truth in Ian McEwan's Atonement. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities. Vol. 23(4), 921-932.

Amis, M. (2003). The Rachel Papers. London: Random House.‏

Amis, M. (2000). Money: A Suicide Note. London: Penguin.

Amis, M. (2014). The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-

London: Vintage.

Arpad Szakolczai, Max Weber and Michel Foucault: Parallel Life-Works (London: Routledge, 2013), 58; Colin Koopman, Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 20.

Clive Barnett. (2015). On problematization: Elaborations on a theme in ‘Late Foucault’. nonsite.org Issue 16 Retrieved Nov. 14, 2015 from http://nonsite.org. June 22, 2015

Connell, R. W., & Connell, R. (2005). Masculinities. Cambridge: Univ of California Press.

Diedrick, J. (2004). Understanding Martin Amis. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press.

Foucault, M. (1972). Foucault, M. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage; Reissue Edition.

Foucault, M. (1977). A Preface to Transgression. In Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. 29-52.

Foucault, Michel (1984). What is Enlightenment? In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, (pp. 32-50). New York: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, M. (1989). "The Concern for Truth," in Foucault Live. New York: Semiotext(e). 295

Foucault, M. (1993). Excerpts from the history of sexuality: Volume 1: An introduction. A postmodern reader. In Joseph Natoli and Linda Hutcheon (Eds.). Albany: State U of New York (pp. 333-341).

Foucault, M. (1997). The Politics of Truth. New York Semiotext(e)

Foucault, M. (1998). Polemics, Politics and Problematizations. In Essential Works of Foucault, In P. Rabinow (Ed.). Vol. 1 Ethics. The New Press.

Foucault, M. (2001). Fearless Speech. Edited by Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles, Ca.: Semiotext(e) MIT Press. 171.

Foucault, M. (2012). The History of Sexuality. Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure. Vintage.

Jenks, C. (2003). Transgression. London: Psychology Press.

Lalbakhsh, P., Maleki, N., & Rad, N. J. (2012). Hardy’s Sue and her failure in the mirror of foucauldian concept of individuality. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. Vol. 18(2), 49-56.

Lamidi, T., & Aboh, R. (2011). Naming as a strategy for identity construction in selected 21st century Nigerian novels. 3L: The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies. Vol. 17(2), 35-47.

Mars-Jones, A. (1990). Venus Envy: on the WOMB and the BOMB. London: Chatto & Windus, 19-20.

Mills, S. (1995). Working with sexism: what can feminist text analysis do?. Twentieth century fiction: from text to context.London: Routledge, 207-219.

Naughtie, J. BBC Book Club. 5 Aug. 2001.

Padhi, S. (1981). Bed and Bedlam: The Hard-Core Extravaganzas of Martin Amis. Literary Half-Yearly. Vol. 23(1), 36-42.

Parker, E. (2006). Money Makes the Man: Gender and Sexuality in Martin Amis’s Money. In Gavin Keulks (Ed.). Martin Amis’s Money in Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond (pp. 55-70). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Powell, N. (1981). What Life Is-the novels of Martin Amis. PN Review. Vol. 7(6), 42.

Rabinow, P. (1994). Polemics, Politics, and Problematization, in Volume 1 of The Essential Works of Michel Foucault: Ethics 1954-1984. Chicago.

Segal, L. (2001). The belly of the beast: Sex as male domination. The Masculinities Reader. 100-111.

Showalter, E. (2003). Teaching Literature. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

White, S. F. P. (2007). The Unmaking of Heroes: a study of Masculinity in Contemporary fiction. HKU Theses Online. Unpublished PhD thesis Hong Kong University.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


 

 

 

eISSN : 2550-2247

ISSN : 0128-5157