Throughout Ling Ma’s novel Severance, the protagonist Candace experiences the demise of all her relationships, such as the loss of her parents, the end of her romantic relationship with her boyfriend, and her eventual departure from the other survivors during the End. While Candace demonstrates a reluctance to let go of some of these relationships, exemplified through the maintenance of her boyfriend’s retainer in the mouthwash solution after their breakup, or through her communication with her deceased mother throughout the novel, the relationship she finds most difficult to sever is the one she has with capitalist society.
This is constant throughout the novel, and even by the end of the text Candace is in a clear state of denial about the downfall of modern society; she fantasizes about the purpose of the city and a participation in its ‘impossible systems’, which breed work and routine. In the end, Candace, unable to accept a new way of life, makes her way towards the city in search of emotional fulfilment as well as survival.
“To live in a city is to consume its offerings. To eat at its restaurants. To drink at its bars. To shop at its stores. To pay its sales taxes. To give a dollar to its homeless.” (page 290).
Candace’s reluctance to let go of her capitalist mindset is justified partly in the novel by Ma’s portrayal of waste culture and the overproduction which takes place under capitalism. Unlike typical apocalyptic narratives, there is no scarcity of resources for Candace and the other survivors, who have access throughout the text to bottled water, beer, drugs, and packaged foods.
“There were so many candy options: marbled jaw-breakers, Bananaramas, Skittles, M&Ms, Wicked Watermelons, Hot Chews, Hot Tamalees, Reese’s Pieces, Good & Plentys” (165).
Is it any wonder Candance maintains her loyalty to capitalism when her surroundings remain crudely emblematic of her previous life?
Ma also satirises this surplus through Candace’s offerings of luxury goods to her parents through the spiritual realm, who she imagines combing through the abundance.
“I imagined that it would be more than they would ever need, more than they knew what to do with, even in eternity”. (106).
Throughout the novel it also becomes increasingly harder to distinguish Candace from the fevered as her routines become monotonous and pointless. Even after it becomes clear Spectra is no longer functioning as a corporation, with the office deserted and unable to produce goods, Candance changes out of her commuting trainers into a pair of office flats before starting her shift. She also admittedly functions on instinct when opting for a receipt after drawing out her final pay check, despite the fact it is now clear even to Candace herself that her working life in New York has come to an end. These habits mimic those of the fevered and in this way the fevered serve as an extended metaphor throughout the novel for enslavement to modern day capitalism. This is most obviously conveyed in Candace’s imprisonment in the L’occitane store at the Facility -a physical embodiment of the mental binds she refuses to shed.
“I was a creature of habit, as it turned out.” (262)
The Culture Industry
Candace’s reluctance to rid herself of a capitalist mindset can be explained by drawing parallels between Ma’s Severance and Adorno and Horkenheimer’s theory of Culture Industry in the Dialectic of Enlightenment. This is the theory that popular culture works similarly to a factory in producing goods, which are used to manipulate and create a society of mass passivity. The Culture Industry, according to Adorno and Horkenheimer, provides standardized mass goods for every member of society under the guise of individualism, so that it’s impossible to escape the industry –“something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape”(Adorno and Horkenheimer, 97). Even in entertainment, which is described as “the prolongation of work under late capitalism,” there remains constant advertisement so that leisure can never be achieved (Adorno and Horkenheimer, 109).
The Culture Industry pervades the novel and is displayed proficiently by Ma through the acts of Lane’s fevered neighbour, who flicks through television channels mindlessly and without critical thought.
“T-Mobile was offering a new no-strings attached carrier plan. She laughed. Neutrogena Blackhead Eliminating Cleanser, blasting blackheads all over your face. She laughed. The new Lincoln Centre Town Car. French’s Mustard. The latest Macbook. She laughed.” (156).
In Severance, Candace’s desperation to cling to her familiar capitalist life, and the loss of relationship with those around her is demonstrative of the detrimental effects of the Culture Industry -on human connection, on survival instincts, and on individual thought.
“Leisure, the problem with the modern
condition was the dearth of leisure”. (199).
References
Primary text
Ma, Ling. Severance. Text Publishing. 2018.
Secondary resources
Cambridge Dictionary | English Dictionary, Translations Thesaurus.” Severance, dictionary.cambridge.org/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/severance#google_vignette
Adorno, Theodor and Max Horkenheimer. “Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” Dialectic of Enlightenment , Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1947, pp. 97–109.
I find your inclusion of Adorno and Horkenheimer very interesting. The idea of the culture industry as inescapable, consuming and a constant is dystopian by nature. Within the novel Candace is reluctant to rid herself from her capitalist mindset as you point out, however considering Adorno and Horkenheimer I wonder if it is truly possible to shirk yourself of capitalism and if the novel is outlining the bleak nihilistic reality of consumer culture. Many of the decisions Candace makes even in the beginning of the novel feel immoral and slippery such as the gemstone bible incident and can be tied to her entrapment within a culture industry. I think maybe Ma not only details the negative impacts of capitalism but the erosion of autonomy within an overwhelming system.
Excellent post on the effects of capitalism and the culture industry in Ma’s novel. You’re quite right to think about how embedded we all are – at least according to the novel – in the wider logic of consumption and to ask what position the novel is taking up in relation to such moves. Certainly Ma offers us Candace whose routines in the ‘before’ sections vary very little from her actions or behaviours in the ‘after’ sections – both as you indicate are beholden to the dynamic of consumption and hence to a form of passivity, as identified by Horkheimer and Adorno in their classic text. The issue for me is how far the novel as a whole is able to critically dissect this landscape. Certainly Candace is caught up in, and beholden to, behaviours and actions that render her passive in the terms you describe – but in showing us these and drawing attention to them, could we say that the novel is able to adopt a more critical perspective? To put this another way, where are the politics of Ma’s novel? Does she or they offer us any alternatives? What kind of resistance is possible and where, if anything, do such acts lead us? For Candace, the end is a deserted stretch of road in Chicago where, it seems, that the rest of the human population has died off. For the novel, I wonder what the implications of this ending might be?
I really enjoyed this blog post Ella! There are some really thought-provoking insights covered here which prod and poke at consumer culture.I think the linked video with its discussion on the culture industry theory from Adorno and Horkenheimer really works well with ‘Severance’ as both are almost sarcastic reflections on the state of the world and how far it has gone with consumerism, how both society and Candace crave the dopamine hit derived from constant, mindless purchasing. What really struck me in the text and what you highlighted so well in your blog was how Candace functions as a vessel through which Ma uncovers the horrors of the consumer mindset, how she reverts back to post-apocalyptic New York as she is ‘unable to accept a new way of life’ and needs the city for her own ‘emotional fulfilment’. She needs the city to survive. She needs to consume to survive. She does not want to shake the hold capitalism has over her, as though it’s a drug that keeps her ‘just alive enough to keep returning for more’ (Meditations ‘THE CULTURE INDUSTRY’). I think this is a really interesting investigation into how one can be quite aware of their consumerist tendencies yet refuse to let them go and actually crave it all the more. Your engagement with the culture industry theory also brings to mind the concept of society moving like a flock to trends and the ‘latest standardized products’, how the idea of being unique is marketed to us and we buy it so easily, believing that we’ll feel liberated and completely individual, completely unique, just like everyone else.
I think you have accurately understood and explained the premise of Ma’s novel, and how the protagonist’s inability to escape her habits embodies the effects of capitalism and consumerism. I thought your point about Candace’s imprisonment in the L’occitane shop as a ‘physical embodiment of the mental binds she refuses to shed’ was entirely accurate. Additionally, your inclusion and discussion of The Culture Industry offers an interesting discourse supporting your proposal in which Ma’s protagonists are confined by an industry of consumption that is impossible to to escape – and equally impossible to imagine life without. I wonder if your argument could be extending to discuss the role religion plays within the novel, how Candace’s relation to capitalism is through her work as a bible publisher. Does this then offer a further element to the proposed inescapability of culture? In which, religion infiltrates the captialist sphere, as well as the political and individual.
I loved how this piece was drawing parallels between Ma’s Severance and Adorno and Horkenheimer’s theory of Culture Industry in the Dialectic of Enlightenment. “something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape”(Adorno and Horkenheimer, 97). Perfectly summarises the situation Candece finds herself in. The character that we see, Candece, has only one form of identity and that is as a consumer, she has no real home and even during the pandemic all she wants to do is go to work and into the office. She has this constant need for work and routine.
Her life before in New York seems unfulfilling, her life moves with no real reason. Every sense of herself is detached from the self.
I really enjoyed this blog post, Ella! Your description of Adorno and Horkheimer’s Culture Industry was very clear, with the accompanying video being of great help (as well as a good laugh). I found your reading of Candace’s imprisonment in the L’occitane store as ‘a physical embodiment of the mental binds she refuses to shed’ particularly interesting and eye opening. When reading your blog post, I was lead to think on how ironic it is that we as readers become frustrated with Candace’s inability to recognise and escape from the consumer capitalist framework in which she is embedded, whilst we too are caught in this trap.