A Place of Your Own: Looking for a Space Outside the Sphere of Commodification in Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street

Abstract

This paper will analyze the potential of enclaves in Don DeLillo’s fiction, focusing on his third novel Great Jones Street, 1973. The presentation discusses issues that arise from notions of space and individual relationships with it, both physical and socially constructed. I examine DeLillo’s representation of city space, personal relationships with space, and the possibility of creating individual enclaves disconnected from the operative logic of late-capitalist society.

The main focus of this exploration is to acquire a deeper understanding of DeLillo’s depiction of American society in the second half of the 20^th century. It will specifically try to answer the question of whether, according to the novel, it is possible for the individual to attempt the creation of such an enclave or if, on the contrary, such space would necessarily and continuously be reappropriated to enforce the constraints of a commodified society.