Abstract
Reforming the Politics of Sensibility: George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, Tim Dorsey & the Narrative of Social Inaction maintains that key narrative modes in Twentieth Century political fiction are indebted to earlier manifestations in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century modes of sensibility in British fiction, and are likewise confronted by the socio-historical politics of these modes. These novels, stretching across time and geographical space, illustrate the continued pervasiveness of these modes and their role in the narrative of socio-political reform. Each chapter addresses a changing narrative relationship with sentimental politics and the implications of this shift on the fictional project of reform.
Together, Orwell, Vonnegut, and Dorsey represent a trajectory of politically-oriented authors whose texts reflect the changing conflicts between reformative aims and sentimental modes. Each author’s relationship to the sentimental sets the tone for the socio-political work of his novel. Although this critical reading may seem eclectic in mingling of sensibility, melodrama, satire, and postmodernism, the use of this critical work illustrates the important relationships between them. This thesis a collection of critical discourse that attempts to address the socio-political work of popular novels, and the complicated interaction of sentimentality, satire, and narrative within them. By examining sentimental modes through this selection of novels, this thesisdemonstrates the roll they continue to play in the political quietism so dissatisfying to critics of popular fictio
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