Oversveen (2021) tries to bring a reinterpretation of Marxist Theory concerning alienation. Instead of understanding alienation as a subjective experience, the author explains alienation as an objective process. This way, the author can solve various theoretical problems related to the alienation theory, such as moral personalism and essentialism. It explains Marxist Theory on alienation’s contradiction of isolation and social power in capitalist communities and how loneliness and powerlessness are increased regardless of humanity’s independence and social power. This paper is important to this study because it helps to show Emily’s problems from a new perspective. Additionally, it provides a new perspective on the impact of society on Emily’s life using an objective process instead of a subjective one. This article has used data from many previous articles whereby the author scrutinizes them and compiles the study to view alienation differently. This shows that the article will be useful in this study in analyzing the physical and emotional effects of isolation that Emily faces.
Another author, Kvangraven (2020), uses the dependency theory to analyze the development challenges that have been caused by economic changes in the last 50 years. It, therefore, ignores the previous literature and comes up with a new dependency theory. The author has used four main components: structures of production, the global historical approach, focus on particular constraints for thriving economies, and evaluation of the polarizing effects of global capitalism. These elements can be found in different contemporary theories; however, this one integrates the four different theories to combine them all. This article will be useful for this study because it will help to show how Emily’s interdependency with society affected her life. This will be based on social, economic, and cultural perspectives. The study will also explain why Emily struggles with the emotional and physical impacts of isolation and its relation to her dependency on society. The study has combined many theories, including the theories of economic complexity, classical Marxist theory, post-colonial theory, neo-structuralism theory, world-systems theory, and theories of imperialism, which makes it relevant and accurate. The study has used secondary sources, which has enabled the author to scrutinize many authentic articles and develop a masterpiece on dependency theory.
The other source is a book by Healy (2020), whereby the second chapter explores alienation theories. The chapter compares the contradicting theories of alienation by Marx and Seeman. The book begins by explaining the history of Marx and Seeman’s theories and how they have been used by the US National Institute of Mental Health. It has used more than 255 articles to compare the different theories, showing that the book is accurate and relevant to this study. However, the emergence of ICT has significantly impacted the relationship between society and technology. This chapter explores the complexity brought by these factors. This book will be relevant to this study because it will provide a modern view of Marxist theory and its relation to technology. Therefore, it will bring the current impact of society on life of Emily when entangled with technology. This implies that the book will bring a modern perspective of the Marxist theory and explain the physical and emotional effects technology and digitalization have on a person. Technology and digitalization have less devastating effects on isolation as people can use technological devices to connect them to the outside world.
References
Healy, M. (2020). Marx and Digital Machines: Alienation, Technology, Capitalism on JSTOR. Www.jstor.org. Web.
Kvangraven, I. H. (2020). Beyond the Stereotype: Restating the Relevance of the Dependency Research Programme. Development and Change, 52(1). Web.
Øversveen, E. (2021). Capitalism and alienation: Towards a Marxist theory of alienation for the 21st century. European Journal of Social Theory, 136843102110215. Web.