Places of Eviction and Places of Self-Exemption

This chapter explores the bifurcation in cityscapes as it compares places of eviction and places of self-exemption in William Kennedy's Ironweed and in Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis. Kennedy explores the Great Depression in Albany, New York, during the 1930s, while the economic downturn of the 2000s, for many the second Great Depression, is captured in Don DeLillo's novel. Kennedy not only changes the function of the cemetery, but takes it out of its physical boundaries to encompass Albany as a whole. Like Kennedy's character, Eric Packer is socially dead, mere capitalistic residue ejected through his own agency. Packer belongs to the corporate society. Packer has the ability to anticipate fluctuations in world currency, to discern patterns of behavior in the liquid crystal. Packer's is the heaven of late capitalism, the abode Francis Phelan was exiled from.