Critical discourse analysis of liberation day by George Saunders

The term discourse generally refers to the social practice of language. Literary discourse is not only an aesthetic form of expression, but also a powerful tool that reveals and questions ideological structures. Short stories offer a unique opportunity to examine the interaction between language, ideology, and power through their dense narrative forms. From this perspective, the thesis examines the power relations, ideological orientations, and character formation processes constructed through discourse in the short stories "Liberation Day," "Ghoul," and "Elliott Spencer" from George Saunders' collection Liberation Day. The main objective of the study is to reveal how individuals are included in systemic structures of domination, the role of language in this process, and the type of ideological criticism the author offers through discourse by following Critical Discourse Analysis approach. The stories are analyzed in terms of linguistic choices, character positioning, and narrative structures; concepts such as voluntary domination, othering, identity guidance, and cognitive control. The analysis revealed that in Saunders' short stories, individuals are forced to voluntarily integrate into ideological systems, identities are reconstructed, and oppressive structures are legitimized through discourse. In addition, traces of concepts such as cognitive manipulation, hegemony, symbolic violence, and othering have been traced through the characters' discourses. In this context, the thesis sheds light on how ideological criticism can be presented through a genre with dense discursive structures such as short stories, revealing the power of literary discourse to analyze individual-society-power relations.