Cultural Landscape of Bourgeois Society in Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis

Malaysia, ID LLCE2016-222;          This paper investigates “crises” happening in the cultural landscape of bourgeois society in Don Delillo’s Cosmopolis through Raymond Williams’s aesthetic theory of cultural materialism. Based on Williams’s theory of “the base” and “superstructure”, the study aims to break down the myth of “crises” in capitalist society through analyzing other cultural meanings in bourgeois society, as cultural materialism sees all the society as a cultural phenomenon. Following Eric Packer’s one-day experience in Cosmopolis, the chaotic and turbulent state quo in New York is revealed to the readers. Underneath the visible issues taking place in society are related cultural practices like the alternative and oppositional cultures as well as the emergent form of culture

Keywords: Base, Superstructure, Culture, Bourgeois Society.