Abstract:
This dissertation is aimed at analysing urbanity as expressed in Prabda Yoons works through the aspects of spatiality and everyday life, specifically as a relationship between urban space and modern identity. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the world population has dwelt in the metropolis. This phenomenon has positioned the contemporary self to interact inevitably with the cityscape, in ways that are both literal and representational. Cities are, thus, significant in moulding modern identity. However, the correlation between urban space and its subject in contemporary literature does not mean that urbanites are subject to the absolute dominance of the metropolis. On the contrary, urban residents seize a variety of opportunities to resist or negotiate with the city in a variety of everyday modes. In this way, this dissertation demonstrates how the behaviour of characters in the fiction of Prabda Yoon relates to the city environment by embedding its everyday routine within complex urban way of living. The identities of these characters, therefore, attach to urban space where freedom resides at a surface and where everyday desires become accessible. However, this surface distances urbanites away from one another and even from their idea of self. Consequently, loneliness and alienation become the likely destination of the urban dweller. But then again, these same circumstances help city dwellers to realise their own different and complex identities, which enable them to resist or negotiate the negative conditions of the city. Prabda Yoons works, thus, represent the complexity of urban ways of life, human potential in resistance or negotiation, and alternatives used to confront the urban conditions.