Exile and Death in Susan Taubes’s Divorcing

This thesis investigates the effects of the condition of exile on intellectual and artistic production. The research focuses on the novel by Susan Taubes, Divorcing and its protagonist, Sophie Blind, her alter ego. Drawing on Wolfson and Pareigis, this thesis argues that Taubes and her fictional self are representative of the intersection of the writer and the public intellectual in exile. Divorcing (1969) is analysed as an exploration of alienation showing that, while alienation is usually associated with a marginal position, it can also become full of potential. In the first chapter, Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1956) is crucial for establishing Susan Taubes as a public intellectual who contributed to the twentieth century transatlantic exchange. In the second chapter this thesis analyses of Divorcing (1969) through the lens of the exiled subject. Drawing upon Wolfson’s and Pareigis’s work, the second chapter argues that for Susan Taubes and her protagonist Sophie Blind, displacement is reclaimed as a potent creative force. Finally, the third chapter explores the oneiric dimension of Divorcing. In addition, chapter three analyses the act of writing as dwelling for the homeless and the connection between narration and death (Arendt; Benjamin) arguing for the power of Taubes’s posthumous narrator. By employing Lacan’s reading of Antigone this thesis draws a parallel between the tragic heroine and Sophie Blind, exploring their similar inhabiting of a liminal space.