Abstract
M.A. (English)
This dissertation aims to examine the nature of the unique creative response to the
prison experience. Different modes of artistic expression will be analyzed to show
that there is no single literary response to incarceration, and to demonstrate the truth
of Oscar Wilde's assertion that "technique is really personality".' To this end,
autobiographical and existential elements inherent in selected prison writings will be
the main focus of this study, since the concern of both the autobiographer and the
existential philosopher is with the dynamic, emergent personality.
The totalizing prison situation is totalitarian in essence, since this kind of prison
regime assumes responsibility for all aspects of the imprisoned human being, its aim
being to annihilate the individual self. In the face of this threat, a human being often
feels the need to assert his humanity and selfhood. The creative response can
provide a means of reinstating the self.
The autobiographer, who concentrates upon the 'becoming' self, must needs be a
philosopher, existential in essence, in the search for the 'autos', the self, in relation
to the 'bios', one's life. This is realized through 'graphe', language, which enables
the writer to probe his/her depths and order his/her disparate experiences into some
kind of balance, merging past and present. The fragmented world of the prisoner
particularly lends itself to creative expression as the writer attempts to impose some
order upon his/her broken life.