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- Title
Imprisonment in Nelson Algren's The Man with the Golden Arm.
- Authors
Ward, Robert
- Abstract
This essay treats the differing paradigms of imprisonment that I argue are prevalent in Nelson Algren's novel The Man with the Golden Arm. My argument explores the motifs of confinement through an analysis of the two central characters. I focus on Frankie Machine, whose incarceration functions as a sanctuary, which stimulates his "escape" from morphine addiction, and his wife Sophie Majcinek, whose figurative entrapment in the tenement room shapes her psychological and physical paralysis. I ask if the apparent development of the way prison dealt with prisoners in mid-century America, by focusing more on models of treatment than punishment, informs our understanding of Machine's gradual regeneration and empowerment. I also question whether the sphere of the tenement room also serves as a symbol of absolute enclosure. My argument is that such conflicting representations of confinement reveal the schism underlying the motif of imprisonment within The Man with the Golden Arm.
- Subjects
MAN With the Golden Arm, The (Book : Algren); ALGREN, Nelson, 1909-1981; IMPRISONMENT in literature; CRITICISM; 20TH century American literature
- Publication
Anachronist, 2006, Vol 12, p183
- ISSN
1219-2589
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.53720/dsgg1079