OUTSELVES Linked: Cultural Alienation in Literary Performance

Abstract

This article is a study of the relationship between the self and its others. It aims to reconsider the two major principles of relevance and context to present a human relationship between the art of communicative performance and the art of cognitive competence throughout some mental representations in literary performances. The article here draws attention to the three main criteria of the discourse of a work of art: ‘Make, Intend and Agree’. This set of three key terms is to be compared with the liberal art of writing in a random selection from the oeuvre of four different authors. The main question is: Is there unity in the writings of different writers? There will be reference to the selective works of a group of well-known writers: such as J.Swift, N.Mahfouz, N.Gordimer and L.Hughes. The article attempts to present how these four writers stress that the cultural alienation (betrayal) is generated by the mechanical execution of legislation, and then contrasts it with the contact (moral belonging) established in the intuitive understanding of right and wrong.