The motif of freedom in Jessica Bruder’s novel “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century”

Abstract

Abstract

The study aims to identify the specifics of the freedom motif in Jessica Bruder’s work “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” within the context of twenty-first-century US socio-economic realities, given that the ideological core of the examined text centers on social issues revealed through the personal narrative of an American citizen. In addition to motifs, the authors examine key aspects of the literary work’s structure, including plot, chronotope, imagery, and ideological-philosophical content. The scientific originality of the article lies in being the first study to analyze Bruder’s work through the prism of the freedom motif, understood as a recurrent textual element that plays a vital plot-shaping role. In addition, the study represents the first instance in Russian literary scholarship to investigate the deromanticization of both the freedom motif and the road chronotope – foundational tropes of American literature – using Bruder’s text as empirical material. The research establishes that the motif of freedom receives a multidimensional representation in “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century”. The author demythologizes the traditional notion of an American citizen’s natural right to liberty, an idea deeply entrenched in US culture and literature from the colonial era through the late 20th century.