I'm an Alien in New York : How Capitalism Creates Alienation in Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer

Sammanfattning: This essay investigates how capitalism affects the characters in John Dos Passos’ novel Manhattan Transfer. It argues how capitalism in many instances leads to alienation in various ways. In order to understand the historical context of the novel and to perform this character study, the concepts of modernism, modernity, Marxism, capitalism and alienation are put forward in the theoretical framework as the foundation of the essay. The main theories used are Georg Lukács’ definition of heaviness, Ferdinand Tönnies’ discussion on community and society and Melvin Seeman’s presentation of the ways in which the term alienation has been used and explained over the years.