Gay Bashing in Caleb Carr's The Alienist: Genetic Structuralism Analysis

Abstract

The Alienist is a historical-fiction crime novel written by Caleb Carr. It portrays the discrimination actions towards homosexuals in New York society in nineteenth century. This research aims to gain a deep understanding about The Alienist's worldview as well as the novel's construction of gay bashing through the killing of young gay prostitutes known as boy-whores. There are three goals of this study; find out about any kind of gay bashing that are constructed in The Alienist, understanding about the social condition of New York in the 19th century as the contextual background, and to know about the world view in The Alienist. In conducting this research, the writer applies the theory of genetic structuralism by Lucien Goldmann. The research is about finding the homologous relationship between the literary work and Caleb Carr’s historical background as it is reflected in his novel The Alienist. The homophobic society in literary work are the same with the sexual discrimination issue in New York society in real life. The world view of the collective subject in the novel is about disagreement towards gay bashing action by resisting the social structure in New York and fight for gay’s human rights.