The Dysfunctional Family and Remaking of Post-War American Society

The first chapter is introductory, and attempts to provide a synoptic overview of various phases of American fiction, movements, and biographical and historical contexts of the three writers. The second chapter entitled “The Mechanisation of Man in Nathanael West” analyses two novels by A Cool Million and The Day of the Locust. The third chapter “John Updike as a Theologian of Sex” is divided into three sections. The first section discusses Updike's aesthetic vision and literary career over the five decades, followed by an extensive analysis of Couples and The Witches of Eastwick. The fourth chapter “The Orphean Dismemberment in John Hawkes” is divided into three sections. The first section deals with the introduction to Hawkes' literary career and enumerates his artistic philosophy and narrative ingenuity with reference to his The Blood Oranges and Whistlejacket. The last chapter is the “Conclusion” which sums up the findings and offers a comparative analysis of the novels, and aesthetic vision. The book examines the spectrum of ways, means, and nuances that West, Updike, and Hawkes employ in creating a dismembered and dehumanised society in their works mirroring a fractured man-woman relationship.